Home Van

Tribute to Pat Fitzpatrick

2012-01-16T06:46:00.001-08:00

Dear folks,

As most of you know, last night Pat Fitzpatrick received the Martin Luther King Hall of Fame Award for 2011. After Pat was chosen for this award, Commissioner Long asked me to write a tribute to Pat to be used at the banquet. I am reprinting it here.

Pat Fitzpatrick

I met Pat Fitzpatrick in 1995 when I was volunteering at St. Francis House and he was serving on the Board of Directors there. Unlike many board members, Pat was a ‘hands on’ guy who came to the shelter frequently to help out and to spend time with the clients. He has an almost magic ability to relate to people and immediately become their friend, no matter their social status or how many problems they have. He is always honest with people about the difficulties he has faced in life and never puts himself above anyone else.

In 2002 Pat was one of the founding members of the Home Van, a mobile soup kitchen and sort of ‘free convenience store on wheels’ that goes out to homeless areas in and around downtown Gainesville. I am from New England and, without Pat, I would have felt awkward and standoffish, not knowing how to connect with street people. I just watched Pat. He would walk up to anyone, clap them on the back, and say, “Hey Brother (or Sister) how ya doin’?” with his big, irresistable Irish smile. Thanks to him the Home Van got off to a good start with the homeless folks.

In the years since, Pat has been our rock. There is nothing he won’t do – no matter how difficult or inconvenient, to help out another human being. That first winter of the Home Van was brutally cold. Now there are quite a few church groups who go out on cold nights with blankets, but in the winter of 2002-2003 we were, to the best of my knowledge, the only one. On bitter cold nights, in between our official driveouts, Pat and I would drive around with a load of blankets and two gallons of hot chocolate and look for people who were not in cold night shelter. We would literally be standing at the edge of the little wooded area across from Suwanee Swifty on South Main Street calling, “Arthur? Are you in there? Do you need another blanket? We have some hot chocolate.” Arthur, an elderly veteran, would invite us in, or maybe come hobbling out to see what we had for blankets. We would go all around the area, through parking lots, down alleys, behind dumpsters, finding folks who needed a little extra warmth.

We still go out on very cold nights. Also, we get calls about food emergencies. Someone who is staying in a motel, while receiving cancer treatments at Shands, has run out of food. I call Pat and he comes and picks up a bag of groceries. Just recently, he walked through the woods with me on a cold, rainy day to check up on a homeless man who has sickle cell anemia and bring him some desperately needed bottled water. When someone needs help, Pat is never too busy or too tired (even if he is) and it doesn’t matter how cold or how hot it is – he is always available.

I don’t know what we would do without him!

Arupa Freeman
Home Van

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 1.7.12

2012-01-07T09:41:00.001-08:00

THE WONDROUS PARTY!

I want to thank everyone for the best Home Van Christmas party we’ve ever had! Amazing stockings packed with practical gifts, Christmas luxuries and objects of beauty. Home made cookies, oranges, Santa Claus making the rounds, and the Jazz Bandits playing Christmas carols, belted out by their lead singer, Khali Blount, in a Santa hat. The East Side Jazz Band has changed their name to the Jazz Bandits and they’re terrific. They frequently play Lightnin’ Salvage (behind Satchells).

Last year’s party was chaotic because I asked everyone to bring their stockings to the green van. That was the first year we had asked people to bring their stockings downtown on the night of the party, rather than dropping them off beforehand. I was in a neurotic sweat about whether we’d have enough stockings so I wanted to be in control of the situation to make sure everyone got at least one. We ended up with hundreds of stockings and a giant traffic jam. This year I trusted our beloved Home Van angels and told people they could give out their own stockings. We were out in the woods a little longer than we expected to be, so we got downtown late. I was in another neurotic state about innocent donators milling around in confusion, waiting for my great organizational genius (snort) to arrive on the scene. Well, we pulled in and you folks had set up a line of boxes filled with stockings and people were filing by. Grandmas and little kids were circulating with plates of cookies, and others with bags of oranges. Santa was making his rounds and the band was playing. Perle Mesta herself couldn’t orchestrated a better party.

The homeless folks had a really good time. They are always polite at our events and at least pretend to be having a good time, but you can tell the real thing – they were enjoying themselves.

THE STORY OF “AARON”

One reason we go out to the woods, a reason as important as the food we bring, is that every once awhile we get a chance to pull someone’s bacon out of the fire. Such was the case with Aaron, who moved into the Williston Road Camp last summer. He is in his early twenties, soft spoken, and obviously very well educated. He always came to the van immaculate and well-dressed. A few weeks ago he showed up looking very, very ill. Anna Hall, one of our pharmacists, has connected with Aaron, who is shy, and she was able to find out that he has sickle cell anemia - and a few other tidbits of information – that he is fluent in English, French and Spanish and close to achieving a Bachelor’s Degree. Anna asked us to get Aaron to the hospital. Pat and I went out there and we reasoned and begged and manipulated and threatened – the full range – and he would not budge. The next day Khali, who is an RN as well as a lead singer, went out with us and he had the mojo to get Aaron to the hospital. He sat in the emergency room with him for five hours. When he finally saw a doctor he was immediately admitted. In addition to Sickle Cell he had pneumonia and a serious infection. When he got out of the hospital he admitted that he has a family in Miami who would be happy to have him back. Freeman put him on the Red Coach along with his lap top and books on philosophy. He emailed me when he got there to say that he is safe and healthy and happy and he thanked all of us for saving his life.

I don’t know how Aaron ended up in the woods and probably I never will. Maybe he was running away from something. Or maybe, because he is so young and so outside the box in his thinking and his sensibilities, he decided, like young Henry David Thoreau, to take up life in the woods. Maybe he will write a book about it.

DAN

Dan wanted me to thank you all for the outpouring of help. He got a fine bicycle, a lock, helmet and reflective vest, a brand new dress shirt for job interviews, and several offers of yard work. He carried out those assignments and is now planning to go to Ocala and file job applications there. He is a determined young guy and I expect him to pull himself out of this hole, with a little help from his friends.

THE HOME VAN BEAUTIFICATION AWARD GOES TO THE WILLISTON ROAD CAMP!

The entrance to the Williston Road camp had turned into continuous heaps of garbage, some left by campers they were glad to see move on, and some dumped by members of the housed community looking to avoid paying dumping fees. The folks requested a dumpster and bags for a big cleanup. Joe Jackson has pull over at Solid Waste Management (as one of the homeless guys said, “He has high friends in low places”) so he got a construction dumpster delivered out there and we got a case of bags from Sam’s Club and they cleaned that woods up so it’s like an illustration from a nature magazine.

Happy New Year Folks, and love and blessings to all of you.

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries books, games, personal hygiene supplies. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 12.11.11

2011-12-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

THE POLICE CLEARANCE SITUATION

As most of you know, it is now necessary to get a monthly police clearance to receive any services at St. Frances House – meals, showers, laundry, and to receive one’s mail. This is a deeply disturbing human rights violation, based on the totally fabricated illusion that the homeless community is rife with criminals and pedophiles. Nevertheless, it is what we are stuck with, and there is a whole team of people – the A Team – working to alleviate and ameliorate the situation as much as possible – Theresa Lowe at the Office on Homelessness, Jack Donovan of the Homeless Coalition, Bill Cervone at the State Attorney’s Office, Joe Jackson, pro bono lawyer to the homeless community, Holy Trinity’s Downtown Ministry (who help people get photo IDs, both in terms of money and navigating the bureaurcracy), and folks at GPD. There is work going on to help people clear warrants involving petty misdemeanors. The Alachua County Housing Authority is allowing people to receive mail at their building. They will accept any photo ID, even one that is out of date, and do not require police clearances. The homeless people themselves seem to be settling in to the new regime with patient endurance. This is a community of people who have endured tragedies and calamities in their lives that most of us cannot even imagine, and this is just one more thing.

CHANGES AT THE HOME VAN

For nine years and counting the Home Van went out twice a week. As of this past Thanksgiving we have reduced our driveouts to one day a week, the Thursday driveout. This was a difficult decision to make, but – due to advancing age and diminished resources – it was necessary. A church group from Chiefland has started coming to the plaza on Tuesdays and serving a meal. We overlapped with them for about three months. During those months we were giving people extra food to alleviate the 130-person meal limit. This also gave us an opportunity to see how committed the Chiefland group is. They came every single Tuesday – during rainstorms, on cold nights, after two jerks started a fight in the line, and just before Thanksgiving. They earned their ‘street creds’ as people who know what it takes.

In some ways the Thursday driveout has always been at the heart of what we do. We started out as a mission that went out to the woods where the people live. This changed the whole dynamic of delivering services. We weren’t standing behind a counter helping supplicants. We were guests in their homes, and we got to know who they are and how they live. We were able to intervene in crises – like someone who needed a trip to the pharmacy to get more insulin right at that moment. We became an emergency contact for people who needed immediate help. Just this past week we became aware of a very young homeless man who was in crisis with sickle cell anemia. Pat and I have been visiting him and bringing him the extra water he needs. This is our little slot and we will now be better able to do this work. In addition, we are going to be able to stretch our money further. Two years ago we lost our state funding to buy tents and since then have been almost totally reliant on donated tents. Now we will be able to buy a few tents each month ourselves. So, after the initial anguish we felt at making this cut back, we are seeing that it is for the best.

THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

As I mentioned last time, our Home Van Christmas party will be on Thursday, December 22 at 5:45 p.m. in the little parking lot on the east side of the Civil Courthouse, right down from the Bo Diddley Plaza and the Lunch Box Café. Freeman will be there in an old green Aerostar Ford van to accept Christmas stockings. It is also okay to pass out the Christmas stockings you bring yourselves. We always have an abundance of stockings so it isn’t ‘one to a customer.’ The East Side Jazz Band will be playing Christmas carols and – it is rumored – Santa Claus is coming with them to make a personal appearance! It will be dark in the parking lot, except for light from the plaza, and that is unfortunate. We are all bringing flashlights and it would be good if guests bring flashlights with them also. With the help of the Home Van Angels, both physical and metaphysical, we are going to do the best we can and have fun also.

Many blessings to all of you, now and always,

arupa
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, duct
tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 11.11.11

2011-11-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

HOLLOW VICTORY

As of November 2 the 130-person meal limit at the St. Francis House soup kitchen came to an end. It was replaced by requirements so harsh, so difficult to meet, and so humiliating and demeaning that St. Francis House is now serving lunch to between 70 and 90 people a day. As of this writing, in order to eat lunch at St. Francis House one must have a photo I.D. and a police clearance that must be renewed once-a-month. A police clearance is a warrants check. These warrants checks can be obtained from GPD between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. every day and on Sundays between 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Under the new laws passed as a result of the Homeland Security Act, it has become a long and complicated nightmare for homeless people to obtain state of Florida I.D.s or even to obtain the documents, such as birth certificates, necessary to obtain a state I.D. Many homeless people do not have such I.D.s and have given up trying to get them. Theresa Lowe, Director of the Office on Homelessness, and others, are working to have other sorts of photo I.D.s deemed acceptable for getting a lunch at St,. Francis House. This will certainly help but it does not address the underlying issue of what has happened to our society that we treat poor people like criminals and are willing to deprive them of food, even if they are children, pregnant women, veterans, and elderly and disabled people (as many of them are).

THIS IS THE SOCIETY WE HAVE BECOME. Earlier this month I read that Senator Steve Oelirich is working to have free and reduced school lunch programs ended because they ‘breed dependence.’ Letters have been written to the Gainesville Sun in support of his unconscionable plan. One recent letter of support stated, “Children can get a meal just by showing up.” Maybe these little dead beats should drop out of school and get a job.

This week we learned the horrrific news that a former coach at Penn State University has been raping the children of the poor over a 13-year period while the head coach, the president of Penn State, and various other high officials stood by in silence. When this head coach was fired, a certain portion of the Penn State student body (enough to create a major riot and turn over a police van) rioted in support of Joe Paterno, the head coach. These students believe that football is more important than stopping a child rapist.

WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN? In our own town of Gainesville, City Commissioners, past and present (excepting the two most recently elected) have sent the message that the interests of money and property are more important that the right of poor people to eat lunch. Pat Fitzpatrick repeatedly went to City Commission meetings and showed a TV20 video of a pregnant woman being turned away from St. Francis House. Commissioners were given eye-witness testimony that hungry children were being turned away from St. Francis House. They sat on their hands and did nothing to end this atrocity, for two long years. Now they have created a situation where even fewer people are able to eat.

May God have mercy on all of us, and lead us on to a better path.

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, duct
tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at
http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 10.14.11

2011-10-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

STORIES

I used to tell so many more stories in this newsletter, especially in the old, old days when we walked through the woods, from camp to camp, sitting around people’s fire pits hearing the news of the day.

Maybe Jerry found a chicken, frozen solid and not past the date, in the dumpster behind Winn Dixie and he bought some flour and they all had chicken and dumplings....

or about Eva’s hallucination. Eva was a kindergarten teacher who took to drink after her child was killed in an accident. One afternoon, in a stupor of beer and listerine, she had a hallucination – but not of elephants or giant spiders. She saw little children running through the woods laughing and playing and she held her arms out to them. Soon after Eva stopped drinking and she had her own little apartment and was reunited with her family before the end. Maybe someone who drinks so much but has such a loving heart can have her own special hallucination and then find her way home...

I will never forget Henry who loved owls and felt he could communicate with them. One day he was standing in the parking lot of Shands, where he worked as a janitor. He looked up and saw an owl on the roof and then an owl feather fell at his feet.

It’s different now with so many homeless people, needing so much, but we still have our moments, especially at the small stops. Tuesday night two journalism students who are doing a class project on hunger rode along and they were talking to a beat up old hooker universally known as “Big Booty Judy.” She’s talking to them and our pharmacy volunteer says she has some donations in her car to give me. It’s a bag and sticking up out of it is a brand new fluffy pink teddy bear. Judy is saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry. People just walk by you. They don’t look at you, or if they do it’s like they’re looking at a piece of garbage. It’s because of how you look. But I’m not a piece of garbage. I’m a human being. I’d do anything to help anybody. I’d give someone the shirt off my back...if I had two shirts...” At that moment she glances over at me and sees the teddy bear and her eyes light up like candles. Of course I give her the bear and she wraps her arms around it...

At such moments I feel like the luckiest person on earth to have this job. To myself, I call them “the Jesus moments.”

Judy has had a long hard path through life, and none of us would have wished it on her. But we have the world we have. It is a gift to know these homeless people and to share such moments.

CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS

The Home Van’s annual Christmas party will be on Thursday, December 22 at 5:45 p.m. in the little parking lot on the east side of the Civil Courthouse. It has been an annual tradition in Gainesville for the past 6 or 7 years. People from all over the community join us and they bring Christmas stockings for our homeless friends (and sometimes home made cookies!). For you newbies on the list, here is how folks do the stockings:

Buy a pair of white tube socks. Roll up one sock and put it in the toe of the other. Then fill the stocking with presents and tie off the top. Here are some suggested items to put in the stockings: candles, batteries (especially triple As), duct tape, chocolate bars, reading glasses, playing cards, small games, crossword puzzle books, small stuffed animals, Vienna sausages, stamped envelopes, pens, small notebooks, lighters...The Dollar store is an excellent place to find stocking stuffers. We have two requests for the stockings:

1. Don’t put money in the stockings. It’s a wonderful thing to do, but it hurts too much if one person gets money in his stocking and another person doesn’t.

2. Make sure each stocking is not made up entirely of utilitarian gifts (like soap and toothpaste). Every stocking should have something pretty and frivolous in it like a Santa Claus candle or a chocolate bar.

We used to have designated drop-off sites for Christmas stockings, first at a volunteers house and then at the Alachua County Housing Authority. The number of people and the numbers of stockings has increased to the point that any drop-off site ends up resembling one of those homes on the TV show about people with Hoarders Syndrome. So now we ask people to bring the stockings to the Christmas party and, if they can, to stay and party with us and meet our homeless friends. If any of you make stockings and can’t bring them to the party, call me (372-4825) and I will make a drop-off arrangements for you.

Peace and love to everyone!

arupa

The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, bug spray, duct
tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWLETTR 6/10/11

2011-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

WINTER IS COMING

Mylar emergency blankets and candles – we need hundreds and hundreds of these two items during the winter months. Emergency blankets keep people alive, even when the temperatures go into the twenties. In fact, the homeless folks say that these blankets actually keep them warm on very cold nights and – good news! – they are extremely inexpensive – one or two dollars apiece depending on where you buy them. They can be purchased by the case online at many different sites – for a range of prices. If you shop around you will find a good deal. More good news – they’re light weight – minimal shipping charge. On very cold nights Pat and I drive around and pass them out, and we keep them in the van. When you donate mylars you are saving lives.

Candles are so, so important. A candle raises the temperature inside a tent by ten degrees. Equally important, candles keep people from sinking into depression. When it gets dark at five o’clock and you have no source of light – sitting out in the woods for endless hours of darkness – unable to read, unable to see what’s coming at you when you hear twigs breaking and leaves crunching - that is like being a prisoner of war.

In a way, our folks are refugees and prisoners of the war between corporate American and everybody else.

This winter I hope your generosity will allow us to pass out candles and mylar blankets by the dozens (mylars also make good makeshift tarps) so everyone has all they need of these two amenities.

One reminder: I no longer take in donations of blankets and winter clothing, because I don’t have the storage space. The Alachua County Housing Authority takes blankets and coats (large size coats are particularly needed). Once a week we take our van to the Hospice Attic Thrift Shop warehouse and load in blankets and sleeping bags and coats. The folks at Hospice Attic – who also donate to other small missions – are genuine angels, and there is one very special angel named Mary Lou who sorts out what we need from the vast middenheaps of donations they receive.

Every winter I hope that this is the last winter we will have hundreds of homeless people living outside. But the One-Stop Center is still a distant dream. One bright light in this darkness is Gail Monahan and her allies at the VA. I wish we could clone Gail, about 40 or 50 times. I think she’s gotten more people off the streets, permanently, than anyone else in Gainesville. She is the Albert Einstein of housing. Her goal is to get every single homeless veteran into housing and she is making great progress.

High protein foods also help homeless people survive the winter. Vienna sausages, or any little poptop cans of meat, will be needed more than ever in the months ahead.

Gary, who was treated for tongue cancer this fall and needed donations of protein shakes, asked me to thank everyone for helping him. We have been able to supply him with all the protein shakes he needed and he is making a good recovery. He can now eat applesauce and boiled eggs.

The Civic Media Center has given a temporary home to the St. Francis House Vet clinic. They also passed out bottled water to homeless folks all summer, and make their restroom available to homeless people.

Many thanks to all of you for being part of our Home Van family. The brothers and sisters in the woods appreciate you more than you will ever know.

love, arupa
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, bug spray, duct tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online
http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 9.1.11

2011-09-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

ALLIGATORS

This is the big news story from the Williston Road Camp. Four large alligators came down Sweetwater Branch and are now crawling around amongst the tents, scaring people, dogs and cats. One of these alligators is aggressive. Two of them died last week (water quality?), but two are left. James Wands, our onsite Home Van volunteer in that camp (he lives there), has made numerous phone calls to the Florida Wild LIfe Commission, which is responsible for capturing and relocating alligators. In the past they have done this several times for the Williston Road Tent Village, but this time there has been no response. Budget cuts? They are managing to co-exist with the gators, but if anyone on this list has pull with the Wild LIfe Commission, maybe they could do some pulling.

STAR-BELLIED/PLAIN BELLIED

The Home Van is about to celebrate its ninth birthday (on September 26). In looking back, it suddenly hit me that the levels of racism and homophobia in the homelesss community have diminished considerably over the years. In the beginning, although there were some interracial relationships and friendships, for the most part all the homeless camps were segregated and mean remarks about crackers and ____ were uncomfortably frequent. Homeless people who happened to be gay had a hard time of it. Although we expressed our disagreement with these isms, we had a conscious commitment to serving people without judging them and were able to make friends across the board. Now integrated encampments are common, and openly gay homeless people seem to have friends and being doing as well as anyone. It’s a good change.

One of the best books about ‘isms’ that I’ve ever read is Dr. Seuss’s book about the Star-bellied Sneetches. He captured two essential truths: (1) Everybody wants to feel that they are better than somebody else, and (2) Capitalists make a great deal of money exploiting this desire. (For anyone who is interested, Bayard Rustin, an African American philosopher who taught at Harvard, spoke eloquently on this subject. In his last speech before he died, which was broadcast on NPR, he said, basically, “Forget racism. It’s all about rich against poor.”)

Before I leave this topic, I want to share the story of Charles, one of our more hilarious clients, although he could be a major pain in the posterior also. Charles is now clean and sober, but in the early days he would often be drunk when we arrived at Lynch Park. He would go into long rants about “You gave all the good stuff to whose white people up at the downtown plaza.” He would go on and on. One night I got tired of it and said, “Charles you’re right. You’ve really nailed it. Tonight we served steak and lobster up at the plaza.” Charles got into a giant fit of the giggles and we didn’t have to listen to that sermon again.

This is a timely topic. I am glad to see fewer ‘isms’ in the homeless community because if they are ever going to become a political force in the community and work for their own liberation, they can’t waste their time fighting with each other. Nor can any of us afford that.

BOOKS AND WATER

August, thank you Heavenly Father!, is over and everyone has lived through it, including us, but we still have hot weather and will for awhile, so water donations help a lot. I’m also really low on paperback books. People love to read, so if you drop a few off, that would be great.

Love and blessings to all of you,

arupa
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, bug spray, duct tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 8.12.11

2011-08-12T12:09:00.001-07:00

PHARMACISTS JOIN THE HOME VAN!

Anna Hall and Ryan Roberts, members of Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CFPI), and Vinita Patel, resident pharmacist at the UF College of Pharmacy Medication Therapy Management (MTM) have joined our Home Van driveouts. Anna is also a professor at the UF College of Pharmacy and this fall she will have her CPFI students going on Home Van driveouts on a rotating basis. One CFPI student will go out on the Tuesday driveouts and work under the supervision of Dr. Abbitt, our Home Van doctor.

This is a huge step forward for us. Although we only dispense over-the-counter medications, none of us felt comfortable in that role. OTC medications are not harmless and should be administered from an understanding of the individual’s underlying medical problems and any other medications they may be taking. We gave out meds because, for example, alleviating the horror of a blinding toothache of someone who may, eventually, after being on a waiting list for weeks or months, get the tooth pulled, trumped theoretical considerations.

Anna and Vinita constructed a mini-pharmacy for the Home Van of tupperware containers that exactly fit into a banana box, each one labeled with the types of meds it contains. They are also collecting donations of OTC meds and are going to, along with Dr. Abbitt, help us apply for a grant to get vitamins from CVS.

To branch off a bit here, it has occurred to me that effective pain management may be one small piece in the effort to keep crack cocaine use from spreading. A few years ago we met a homeless woman who had two bad knees. She would come up to the van very slowly, with a friend helping her along, grimacing in pain at each step. Until one day when she came walking up to to the van, unassisted, with a big smile on her face. I asked her if she had gotten some medical care. She said, “No, I’m just having a good day.” After she left one of her friends said, sadly, “She’s started smoking crack.” Then I learned that crack is a highly effective pain medication that is available to homeless people 24/7. Our friend with the bad knees was a woman in late middle age who had lived indoors most of her life, holding down jobs and raising children. If she hadn’t fallen into poverty and homelessness, if she had had timely access to medical care and pain management, I don’t think in a hundred years she would have become a crack addict.

I’m not naïve enough to think you can fight the crack epidemic with a bottle if Ibuprofen, but, if you can keep even one person from walking down that road, it’s worth the whole game.

Anna tells me that their drive to collect OTC meds is getting off to a slow start, so some of you may want to contribute also. The dollar store on 13th street, the one down the street from Gainesville High School, btw, has excellent deals on aspirin and cold meds. The most frequently requested meds are for pain, heartburn, allergies, sinus congestion and skin infections. Vitamins are also requested frequently and, recently, many requests for Vitamin C. One of our homeless men follows the Linus Pauling Vitamin C regime and has been spreading the word that Vitamin C boosts your immune system and helps fight infection. He’s won a group of converts who have discovered that it really does.

THANK YOU!!

We continue to receive wonderful donations from you, our extended Home Van family. A special thank you to all who have brought us bottled water. I wish you could directly experience how grateful people are for this assistance. So far this summer, the group of homeless folks we serve have not lost anyone to dehydration, which seems like a miracle to us when we are out there with them. After two hours we are fried, frizzled and done in. Spring Hill Baptist church makes their outdoor water faucet available to homeless people and undoubtedly other churches as well. It’s also a good idea to carry a few bottles of water in your car as you drive around. If you see a homeless person dragging down the sidewalk in this heat, give them some water.

Many blessings to all of you,

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, bug spray, duct tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/16/11

2011-07-16T08:36:00.001-07:00

THE GENTLE RAIN FROM HEAVEN

Rain has always felt like a sacrament to me, and never more so than this July, coming after one of the worst months we have ever experienced since the Home Van began going on driveouts. The June heat wave – day after day of temperatures around 100 degrees and heat indices from 105-110 degrees - made life in the homeless community a daily struggle with dehydration and heat exhaustion.

In addition, four of our homeless women died horrific deaths during the month of June. One was murdered by an unknown predator, one was beaten to death for the money from her disability check, and two died from complications of HIV they contracted from using drugs and working the streets. Maybe one of them was over the age of 50. Since several of these women were lifelong residents of the community, survived by many innocent relatives, I am not going to tell their stories. I will say that the two who died from HIV entered into drugs and street work after a childhood of being abused and molested, which is true of roughly 90% of the women who work the streets, according to the research I’ve found on this subject. These women were in and out of jail throughout their short lives.

It costs a great deal of money to continually put people in jail. When are we going to decriminalize prostitution and use that money to set up halfway houses where sex workers receive counseling, medical care, and job training? When are we going to realize that an abused child does not turn into a criminal and ‘dreg of society’ on her 18th birthday?

THE NEWS FROM NIMBY LAND

The City Commission has postponed the meeting to consider ending meal limits at St. Frances House from July 21 to August 18. No comment. I leave the commenting up to Pat – that’s his department. Also, NIMBYS are trying to derail the 152-bed shelter and rehabilitation program for homeless vets that the Alachua County Housing Authority is attempting to put in place. I have more respect for the NIMBYS who say “We don’t want homeless people near our business or neighborhood” than I do for those who are claiming that this facility is not good enough for our homeless vets. I suspect that most of them want to be seen as humanitarians, not NIMBYS. Well, let me see – where would homeless veterans want to be? In a moldy tent out in the woods or in a private room with a bath, a bed, and a microwave, on a bus line to the VA, with case management on site? Napolotano’s restaurant has filed a lawsuit attempting to stop this shelter for vets. I would suggest a community-wide boycott of Napolatano’s, and if someone wants to set up a picket line outside their restaurant, that would be a good thing also.

HEARTFELT THANK YOUS TO SO MANY

First of all, the public school system of Alachua County, who will be feeding all children under the age of 18 – no red tape – for the entire summer. Many hundreds of people are making this happen. Then, and always, the downtown public library. Year after year this library serves as the de facto cooling and warming center for our homeless people, makes their restrooms available, allows homeless people to check out books (that is rare in this country), has a special movie day for the homeless folks, with snacks served, and gives out street cards. Now they have added another amenity – bike repair tools. These librarians and library staff are my heros. Never once, in all these years of service to the homeless community, have I heard one librarian, or even library patron, at Citizen Comment whining about all the homeless people blighting the bibliophilic landscape. God bless them. And another thank you to The Civic Media Center, which makes their restroom available to homeless people, is giving out bottled water this summer as they did last summer, and have chained a bike pump to the front of their business, available to everyone. I recommend that all of you pick up a copy of the Iguana and start taking advantage of this counter-culture library and its many offerings of concerts, lectures, art exhibits and movie nights.

SH’MAL IS BACK!

Our beloved Sh’mal, movie star and one of the Home Van’s first chaplains, has moved back to Gainesville after three years of living in Seattle. (For you new subscribers, Sh’mal was the star of a wonderful movie – “It’s a Sh’mal World” – made by UF students, about his work with homeless people in Gainesville.) He is returning to his chaplain duties with the Home Van. We have one chaplain, Larry Condra, who, happily, is also an addictions counselor, but we have always needed to have two. The homeless folks love Sh’mal, along with just about everybody else. Welcome home Sh’mal!

WATER WATER WATER

We are giving out enormous quantities of bottled water. A special blessing on all of you who bring bottled water and leave it on our steps. Keep up the good work!

love,
arupa
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries, bug spray, duct tape, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 7.1.11

2011-07-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

GRATITUDE

I am pretty good about thanking the Universe for the blessings bestowed upon me, but not so good at remembering to have gratitude for life’s difficulties, which may be the greatest blessings of all, because they are our teachers. Gratitude for life’s difficulties is the path out of the woods. If I spend five minutes a day on the path, and the rest of the day crashing through the bushes (a common scenario), it’s still good. Because of those five minutes I know where the path is, and that I can be on it any moment that I remember to be.

This has been a month of one tragedy after another in the homeless community, and yet we still hear so much gratitude from them, and so much ability to seize the joy of the moment. Last Tuesday they came together with the volunteers and threw me a fabulous birthday party downtown – with cupcakes, watermelon, red velvet cake, ice cream, flowers, cards, and tsunamis of love. I’ve never been to a better party in my life.

JOY

Joy is having something fun to do. The vast supply of books, games and art supplies we received at Christmas is finally running low. We need more. These gifts mean more than having fun (although that would be enough). My old Vermont granny would often tell me that “The Devil finds work for idle hands.” She was right. Long hot days aren’t so hard if you have a good book to read, games to play, a sketchpad and a pencil. All those are absolutely terrific alternatives to drinking and fighting (being Irish I’m kind of an expert on that).

THE FOURTH OF JULY

In India July 4 is Gurupurinama Day, when one thanks the Universe for all Teachers and all Enlightened Beings – Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Aristotle, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi............We have been blessed with so many. Happy Fourth of July and Gurupurinama Day to one and all.

arupa
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, batteries books, games, personal hygiene supplies. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, Inc., earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

Home Van Newsletter 5.29.11

2011-05-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

GIL SCOTT HERON

I was sad to read in the New York Times this morning that Gil Scott Heron – poet, musician, visionary, lifelong champion of the poor and the oppressed - died this week in a New York City hospital, another victim of the crack epidemic. Drugs are no respecters of persons, places, money, fame, talent or anything else. I look forward to the day (if I should live so long!) that our country redefines drug addiction as an illness rather than a crime. Ever since I can remember this country has been fighting a ‘war on drugs’ and drugs always win. I imagine that the money fighting this endless war would build a lot of rehabilitation clinics and hospitals.

I wanted to post a poem by Mr. Heron, but his poems are very long and excerpts do not do them justice. In his honor I am posting one of my own poems, a poem I suspect he would like:

The Least of These

Jesus

you got the shakes
picking up butts
on 13th Street,
some of them are long,
God is good.

Tennessee splits a
6-pack with you along
the banks of
Sweetwater Branch,
it’s all good.

Except Keesha’s on a rampage
wants your butt hanging from
a rusty tent pole
you head up stream,
fill a water bottle at the bus depot
for JC so he can boil his
colostomy bag,
out here
where You live.

-arupa/May 2011

The Meal Limits

It appears that the City now has some willingness to change from a 130-person limit to a three-hour serving period. I will update you on any information about that. Unfortunately, those person who support the meal limit have requested a rather Draconian tradeoff – an end to all meal services to the hungry and homeless in the downtown Gainesville area. So, if this comes to pass we will be trading one battle for another. I will keep you updated about this also, as information comes my way. It is still in the discussion stage at this point.

In the meantime, we keep on keeping on. Recent guests to our evening meal included five children, an elderly woman in a nightgown who had just been discharged from Shands, a former AGH employee....

WATER, DUCT TAPE, TRIPLE A BATTERIES

These are most needed now. The need for water donations will be ongoing through out the summer. To arrange to drop off donations, call Home Van Central at 352-372-4825

Peace and blessings,

arupa

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 4/10/11

2011-04-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

JUNKIES AND HOOKERS

Sometime in the coming weeks, the Meal Limit battle will be fought in front of the City Commission. Outraged citizens, along with wealthy downtown developers, will inform the City Commission that St. Francis House, as well as other do gooders, are feeding junkies and hookers.

The theory is that if we stop feeding these ‘dregs of society’ (another phrase we hear at public meetings), they will go away, leaving us with a prosperous and vibrant downtown.

Yes, the Home Van feeds junkies and hookers and we are proud of it. They are folks we have known for many years, and people who have taught us more about love and compassion than we ever learned anywhere else. Two years ago, when a middle-aged woman was discharged from Shands hospital, into homelessness, with a feeding tube hanging out of her stomach and a bag of medicines that require refrigeration, she wound up in Lynch Park, since there was no bed available at St. Francis House. The junkies and hookers took care of her, and brought her to our attention so that we could find a social worker to help her out. I will never forget the sight of Peanut, one of the Lynch Park junkies, on his knees grinding up her pills between two rocks and carefully pouring the grains into a bottle of water, as the directions from the hospital required. Others take care of Maria, who has asthma and diabetes. When newly homeless people find themselves on the dark street that runs behind St. Francis House, it is the junkies and hookers who orient them to their situation and tell them where to get help. Two weeks ago an elderly couple, who looked very middle class and beyond terrified, were brought to the Home Van by our junkies and hookers. Actually, the old man refused to come – he was too humiliated. Charlene took the old woman by the arm, saying softly, “It’s okay. They’re nice people. They will help you.”

If only the City Commission were more like our junkies and hookers.

Where do they come from and why are they out there? Virtually all of them are long-time Gainesville residents. Some of them were born here. Why they are out there is a question you can research for yourselves, online or in the many books on the subject. You will find that they come from childhoods of poverty, abuse, trauma, and in the case of women who work the streets, long-term childhood incest. If they were still children, everyone would believe in the importance of helping them. Because they were the invisible children of the poor, because many of them were sent off to fight a war they could not avoid by enrolling in college – they have now achieved the status of “dregs of society” and we are supposed to let them starve.

We will do that the same day the City Commissioners sprout wings and fly off to the Planet of Condominiums and Upscale Shopping.

If you have been downtown lately, to an arts festival, a play, a concert in the park – if you have sat outside at Harrys enjoying food and music - you will see that we have a wonderful and vibrant downtown. A few lost souls in the plaza or Lynch Park, have little or no impact. The only time I would advise you to stay away from downtown is at bar closing time on weekend nights. Hundreds of poor little inebriated college students staggering to their cars, with valiant warriors from GPD saving as many of them as they can, is not a pleasant sight.

This how a good many of the morality mongers who ask the commission to keep the meal limit are getting their money, directly or indirectly. They sell beer to college students.

Maybe we need a class on morality and compassion taught by junkies and hookers.

I will give the last word here to my old friend Bill Shakespeare:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

love, arupa

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/26/11

2011-03-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

PLANNING BOARD MEETS THIS THURSDAY ON MEAL LIMITS!!

This is important! Below is an edited excerpt from the Gainesville Sun on this issue and this meeting:

“[On Thursday, March 31 at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall] the City Plan Board, which advises the Gainesville City Commission on planning issues, will hear a petition to change the 130-meals-per-day limit on soup kitchens. Kent Vann, the executive director of the St. Francis House on South Main Street, the only establishment affected by the meal limit, filed a petition to have the limit lifted. The petition instead asks that the ordinance, Section 30-111, be changed to allow three hours of serving meals in a day. Vann said meals would be served between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. to give clients with jobs flexibility to get there and to avoid a clustering of people downtown.

According to the St. Francis House, the average number of lunches...served increased steadily between 2005 and 2009, when the Plan Board voted to more strictly enforce the ordinance, which had been on the books for years. In a reversal, the Plan Board suggested removing the limit altogether last year during discussions on whether to lift it during holidays. Downtown merchants and residents — along with city commissioners — contend that the meal limit spreads the “burden” of the homeless population instead of concentrating it downtown.

Nathan Collier, owner of The Collier Companies, which has a number of apartment complexes in Gainesville, including Arlington Square downtown, recently wrote an email to commissioners with a plan to ‘keep Downtown Meal Limit.’

‘Gainesville’s Downtown plaza, instead of being an inviting location for families to converge has become a DMZ, occupied by an army of daytime campers,’ Collier wrote. ‘I applaud the kind instincts of those who wish to help those in need BUT not in a manner and a location that hurts so many others who work so hard to make downtown a pleasant place to live. Why must the vagrants take over one of the very best locations the City has to offer?’

Collier also offered a novel idea that is sure to upset homeless advocates: “Why not LOWER the limit? Phase downtown meals out over time? Downtown has suffered long enough!”

Vann said that would only fuel panhandling — not to mention take away food from people in need. ‘You’re hurting human beings is what you’re doing’ he said.”

So this is what we’re up against. The notion that homeless people are vagrants and if they are denied services they will disappear –rolling down Interstate 75 like a little group of tumbleweeds – has been tried, in various arenas, ever since I can remember. If it worked, there might be about three homeless people left in this town.

The idea that the meal limit will result in “services being dispersed through out the city” doesn’t work either. Alternate meal sites throughout the city have not magically “appeared” during the year the meal limit has been in place. Any attempt to make such sites appear would be met by the usual horde of NIMBYS who would enjoy the support of the City since they are committed to
“protecting neighborhoods and businesses.”

The meal limit has resulted in more meal services happening in the downtown plaza, not less (duh). I would be happy to disperse my meal service, but I wouldn’t be able to disperse it very far, since wheelchairs, crutches and canes are a common site in our food line. Perhaps I could disperse it to the banks of the Duck Pond. The Duck Pond Neighborhood Association would need to install porta-potties, a water fountain and picnic tables but I’m sure they could manage that.

WE NEED A BIG TURNOUT FOR THIS MEETING!!! And not just the ‘usual suspects’ - new faces, new voices, and plenty of them.

HYGIENES AND VITAMINS!

We are low on personal hygiene products and on vitamins. Almost all the folks out there want one-a-day type vitamins, because they have discovered they feel better when they take daily vitamin. Sometimes I can meet this need out of the Food Bank, but there has been a total dry-up of vitamins there (which happens periodically) so I really need to get these donated. The Dollar Stores often have good deals on vitamins and places like Walgreens often have “two for the price of one” sales.

Enjoy this beautiful Spring, and many blessings,

arupa

The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, mylar emergency blankets, games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to Citizens for Social Justice, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

ADDICTION AND THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY

2011-03-19T15:44:00.001-07:00

ADDICTION AND THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY

Years ago, when I volunteered on the swing shift at St. Francis House, I often noticed that, after dark on the day the disability and Social Security checks arrive, a car would pull into the parking lot of the convenience store across from St. Francis House and a man in a suit and tie would disappear into Lynch Park. It wasn’t always the same man, but it was always a man in a black suit driving a black car, probably to be more invisible to law enforcement. This was the crack man, come to harvest the homeless people’s money.

The crack man gives out free samples of his wares, a deadly practice. Addiction experts say that crack cocaine is the most addictive substance on the face of the earth and many people become permanently addicted the first time they use it. The crack man also extends credit, just in case someone might decide to spend a little of their money elsewhere, so he is there to get all or most of their checks. He is a scary guy. I met him once face-to-face, in the early days of the Home Van. We were parked in the same parking lot. He walked over and stood there staring into the van. Competition will not be tolerated. After a moment of frozen silence, I gave him my best “Suzie Stupid” smile and said, “Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?” He pulled a big wad of paper money out of his pocket, snapped it in my face, and said, “I don’t need your hot chocolate.” Then he disappeared into Lynch Park. If you cross the crack man you are going to end up dead or seriously disabled. This man participates in inducing or even forcing homeless women to smoke crack and then putting them to work on the streets.

The crack cocaine trade is also financed by selling food stamps. The going price for food stamps is 50 cents on the dollar. I have been told that some convenience stores located near drug areas buy food stamps for 40 or even 30 cents on the dollar. Individuals buy food stamps because they need more food than they are getting, or as part of the general trade by which people obtain tobbacco, batteries, dog food and other amenities that are unavailable or scarce to poor and homeless people. Every governmental body that cuts down on the amount of food and other services available to homeless and hungry people are helping out the crack man and other predators. As the Taoists say, the web of life is an unbroken whole and every act, every decision, reverberates through all our lives.

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 2/20/11

2011-02-20T11:59:00.001-08:00

TO OUR FRIENDS

Hello! You haven’t heard much from me over the winter. It has been a winter of two Home Van computer crashes and a lot of work.
Winter is always a bleak time for homeless people and those who serve them, but we have never, in our nine years of working the streets, seen a winter as harrowing as this one. It’s also been hard times for many in the housed community. I don’t think anything is gained by sending out one Dickensian newsletter after another. It disempowers people, including me. I take it one day at a time and don’t spend a lot of time looking at the big picture or the long-range prospects. Fortunately, there are courageous souls who work with the big picture and the long-range. For us, it’s who gets to eat today, or get their prescription filled, or have a candle to read by during the long, cold nights.

You blessed souls continue to support our mission even during times of silence. Once again we have made it through a hard winter without losing anyone to hypothermia, in part because of the steady donating of mylar blankets.

We received very large book donations this fall, and ongoing donations from Haven Hospice Attic, and that was certainly a blessing. Nina likes to read romances where Broderick, of the cleft jaw, courts the lovely Desiree. Joe wants a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Nick wants anything by Michael Crichton. Melvin is into weighty tomes on history and politics. No problem – we have had it all. At each stop people pull the book box out of the van and start going through it – giving each other reviews of the books they’ve already read. Kim hugged her book and says, “This takes me into a different world.”

DUCT TAPE AND BATTERIES MONTH

I am declaring the next 30 days DUCT TAPE AND BATTERIES MONTH at the Home Van. We need rolls of duct tape to be donated, so people can repair their tents. We can never get too many battery donations. Batteries for flashlights and radios make a huge difference in quality of life for people living in the woods. Light. Music. Voices.

Also, if any of you are visited by the Money Elf – we need tents. Tents that are donated go to the most vulnerable people, with ‘vulnerable’ defined as pregnant, elderly, or disabled. We never have enough even for these groups. Lately there has been an influx of very young adults into the homeless community. They can’t find work. They ask for tents with scared, amazed faces: “I have nowhere to go at night.” If any of you can have a tent drive at your church or other organization???

SPRING!

It was wonderful last Thursday to stand around with the Williston Road campers, basking in the sun and watching Sheba peel an egg. (Most dogs will eat an egg shell and all. Sheba peels her egg – quick and delicate of paw.)

Thank you Creator, for Spring.

love and blessings to all of you,

arupa
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, mylar emergency blankets, games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 11/19/10

2010-11-20T12:59:00.000-08:00

A LONG TRAIL WINDING...

Sometimes very long, hard roads lead to happy endings. So it is with "Barbara." Barbara has been homeless for many years. After aging out of Florida's foster care system, she developed a serious problem with drugs and alcohol. She ended up in jail for slapping a police officer, which is a felony. Then she found it difficult to get work. She worked odd jobs anywhere she could, but wound up homeless for many years. About 15 years ago Barbara got clean and sober and has remained so ever since. She has continued to pick up work anytime she can, and also occupies herself with volunteer work, some through agencies and missions, and some on her own. She has often guided an elderly or disabled homeless person through the process of applying for food stamps and Section 8 housing.

Barbara is a loner who camped by herself, in the same spot for several years. She always left her campsite before sunrise and returned after dark, in order to escape detection in this tough town where it is illegal for a homeless person to sleep in a public place (or anywhere since they have no private space). One night Barbara was on her way back to her campsite when she encountered some GPD officers, who thought she was there to steal from a nearby construction site. She was arrested for prowling and loitering. Then, as luck would have it, Barbara was featured on a local TV station as an example of how law enforcement is protecting the community. Around the same time, her two best friends died, one from illness and one from old age. She fell into a profound state of depression and made a serious suicide attempt. By the grace of God, a friend discovered her and this terrible event lead to Barbara being accepted into a program at Meridian.

One reason Barbara has been homeless for so long is that, for the past 15 years, she has not fit into a particular category. She was not drinking or taking drugs, she was not pregnant, she has no children, and she is not a veteran. Like so many single homeless women, there was nothing for her. When she became depressed and suicidal, there was finally a place for her to get help. With the help of Meridian, the Hope program, and a caring disability lawyer, Barbara is starting to thrive.

Next week - ta dum - Barbara is moving into an apartment!

IN GENERAL...

We are seeing many new faces in the homeless community, on a weekly basis. Things are pretty tough out there. We are, thank God, having a fairly mild winter so far, and that's a break. The courage and resiliance of our homeles friends continues to amaze and inspire me. Last night I met "Cedric" outside St. Francis House. He said, "I don't know why I'm here, but God wasn't ready for me yet." He was serving in Baghdad in close proximity with 15 other men. A bomb fell and no one but Cedric survived. Cedric has huge luminous eyes and he smiles. At the same time, he looks stunned - like a deer in the headlights who has no where to go. He smells faintly of beer, but is not intoxicated. He is living moment-by-moment, thanking God for his life and ready for wherever it may take him.

He reminds me that courage,like God, is in the moment.

peace and blessings to you all,

arupa
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The HOME VAN needs candles, white tube socks, creamy peanut butter, jelly, tents, tarps, personal hygiene products (hotel size), Vienna sausages and protein drinks, both regular and diabetic. To donate money to the Home Van, send a check, made out to St. Vincent de Paul, to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesvillr, FL 32601, or donate through PayPal at our blog: http://homevan.blogspot.com/

2010-11-20T12:52:00.000-08:00

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 11/6/10

2010-11-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

ONE LEG AT A TIME....

I encourage all of you, regardless of your political persuasions, to go on YouTube and listen to the short speech Jon Stewart made at the end of the Rally for Sanity on the Capitol Mall. He was calling for an end to media-driven hatred, paranoia and suspicion against ANYONE - Tea Partiers, Tax and Spend Liberals, minorities, immigrants, Muslims and, as the old song goes "Baptists and Buddhists and Jews." Before a montage of cars driving down a highway - people of all kinds driving home to face their marriages, kids, bills, crabgrass - whatever it is - he encouraged us to see each other as human beings with much in common and not to demonize - from the right or the left - ANYONE. Amen.

I have noticed over my seven decades of life that there is always at least one official Bogeyperson who is going to end life as we know it. In grade school I sat in front of the TV and watched the Army-McCarthy hearings. Then it was Communists who were going to destroy us. It's always someone. Maybe Muslims or homeless people or residents of low-income housing. None of these groups have ever destroyed us and none of them are likely to if we can learn how to love other people as we love ourselves, get to know each other, and search for common ground.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society is a two-hundred year old Catholic organization with a long history of accepting everyone - of all faiths or no faith - as volunteers. The only rule is you have to be Catholic to be an officer, which is a nice break for non-Catholics who aren't fond of going to meetings, taking notes, and balancing books.

One of the things I appreciate most about the SVDP/Home Van family is our diversity and the fact that we have made some real progress in bringing the homeless community and the housed community together. Three of our five sandwich volunteers are homeless people and several of our outreach workers, who bring crises and special situations to our attention, and even oversee the distribution of valued donations, like tents, to make sure they are going to those who need them most and won't sell them. Many different groups from the community have joined us at the plaza for our driveouts and spent time hanging out schmoozing with our folks.

Recently two new groups are joining up with the Home Van family. First, Nkwandah Jah and her Environmental Ambassadors - a group of children who do service in the community. The Ambassadors are conducting a drive for donations, which they will bring to our Home Van Christmas Party, Thursday, December 23, at 5:45 p.m. in the little parking lot on the south side of the Civil Courthouse, right next to the Bo Diddley Plaza. Second, the Metropolitan Community Church. The Metropolitans have been making quilts for homeless people, and plan further efforts to gather useful donations.

As I mentioned last time, all of you are invited to our Christmas party. We have a lot of new people in the homeless community, some who have never been homeless before. They are scared and they need friends (a lot of us are have been scared and needed friends - you know how it is). This brings me to another necessary topic. Most of us have taken a pretty good hit in this economy, so here it is:

MAKING CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS FOR THE HOMELESS FOLKS AFFORDABLE

The Dollar Stores around town are a great source of stocking stuffers - candles, reading glasses, candy bars, playing cards, socks - for five dollars you can buy a whole bunch of great stuff. Also, garage sales! Paperback books, little stuffed animals, costume jewelry - make a great stocking for a dollar or two. Also, since we're having folks bring the stockings directly to the party, they can contain perishable presents like cookies and oranges.
In that regard, if you are planning to bring holiday stockings to the party, drop me an email and let me know that you are coming and how many stockings you plan to bring with you. If you would like to make stockings but have no way of getting them to the party, also let me know and I'll make special arrangements with you. I need to know that we are going to have at least between 200-300 stockings, so everyone gets one and I have a few leftover for the hermits out in the woods.

Thank you for all the Mylar blankets. We handed out more than a hundred last night!

Peace and blessings to one and all,

arupa

The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, mylar emergency blankets, games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

Free Poem - included in the cost of the newsletter!

Hope is the thing with feathers,
that perches in the soul,
and sings the song without the words,
and never stops at all.

-Emily Dickinson

STORIES FROM THE STREETS

2010-10-15T14:35:00.001-07:00

"Simon"

"Simon" has been living in the homeless community for about two years. His presence there has been a mystery. He seems to have none of the problems that ordinarily result in homelessness. Gradually, we discovered that he is an ordained minister and is quietly assisting certain invidividuals who need help, often the most vulnerable and confused. I started to ask him to help out, here and there. Sometimes he said yes and sometimes no, once explaining that Spirit was not telling him to take on that particular task. Finally I said to him, "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" He said he didn't so I asked him - did you leave your home and move on to the streets in order to follow the bidding of the Spirit moment-to-moment? He said, "Yes, I received this calling 22 months ago."

This is a centuries-old tradition, spoken of in the literature of, I believe, all the major religious traditions in the world: the wandering monk or sannyasin who walks out the front door and lives unemcumbered, under the stars, following the will of the Creator in the moment, dependent solely on the Creator for sustenance. In recent times, an old woman named Peace Pilgrim chose this path, walking the streets and highways of this country for more than 20 years, preaching peace. She never carried money or anything that didn't fit into her small backpack.

I am shaken with wonder when I meet someone like Simon in the homeless community - as I have before a time or two. He is part of the hidden universe of the poor and the faithful that coexists within our world almost like another dimension. We can have hope because it's still there - you won't find it on Face Book or anywhere else but in the universe of Now, where the homeless people live.

"Miss May, Bill and Mr. Leon"

Miss May worked all her life as a waitress. She has lived in the St. Francis House neighborhood for decades. All those years she helped out the homeless people, with food, friendship, and even shelter on stormy nights. Now she's 77, in poor health, and struggling along along on Social Security. She became ill this year and her weight dropped to 57 pounds. The homeless people, led by Bill and Mr. Leon, have made a project of helping her out. They go to food pantries and outdoor meals all over the dowtown area, gathering food for her and cooking it. Her weight is now up to 81 pounds, a fact they are celebrating. Last week they told me that her oven isn't working and her frig no longer keeps food cold. We have asked Christians Concerned for the Community to find a stove and frig for her. The waiting list at CCFC is long, but we're hoping for an intervention of Grace. It happens.

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 7/15/10

2010-07-19T08:51:00.001-07:00

LORETTA

We have known Loretta for five or six years. When she first came to us for meals, she was often in her own world, talking to people we can't see and singing gospel songs. She liked to dress flamboyantly in those days, a blonde wig, a purple satin blouse. The last few months she has been calmer, more subdued in her choice of outfits, and also more in contact with what we call "reality." Tuesday night she arrived late and we were out of cheese sandwiches so she had to take a peanut butter sandwich. She came to me and began crooning words that were somewhere between a poem and a litany:

All I ever ate for lunch, kindergarten through 8th grade, a dry peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk,
every day, a dry peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk.
All around me other black children they have cornbread, greens, sometimes they have fried chicken I have
a dry peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk - kindergarten through 8th grade, every day, all I have
a peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk
every day, a dry peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk.

There was a faraway look in her eyes - a memory that really hurt. The best I could do was get her a can of Vienna sausages, but I was rewarded with a big smile for this tiny crumb of grace. We have put her on the list to get a diabetic bag, which always has a cheese sandwich, on Tuesdays, an extra egg, Vienna sausages and a protein shake.

MR. G AND THE VALUE OF VOLUNTEERS

Mr. G, who is in his late 80s, has been coming to Home Van meals for about two years. He is not homeless, but - like so many old people on fixed incomes - doesn't have enough money for food. At least, that was my assumption. One of our volunteers, Steve Blay, is the founder of an organization called Friends Across the Ages that does outreach in nursing homes. Working with people in their 80s and 90s is what Steve does and he saw signs and symptoms of elder abuse. Mr. G. is very shy, but Steve got to know him and had a talk with him about his situation. Steve summarized what Mr. G had to say:

A while back my daughter asked me to sign something about the house. I didn’t want to sign anything and I told her so. But then some other day she came by the house with a man who had some paper for me to sign. She told me I had to sign it because they were about to start fixing up my house for me but they needed me to sign it first. I still didn’t want to but it was my daughter, and I thought I could trust her, so I signed it. I sure wish I wouldn’t have. After that people starting coming in my house throwing all my stuff out. They didn’t even ask me. I don’t know who they were, they just took all my stuff and threw it out of the house. That was stuff I worked my whole life for. Then the next thing they started replacing all the windows in the house. Those windows were just fine but they started replacing them all. Then my daughter told me that I would have to move out of my room. She told me I had to sleep in another room over by the kitchen. They took my old bedroom and locked the door. It’s still locked and I can’t get in there. I built this house by myself and now they are taking it from me. My daughter already has a house but they want to give it to my granddaughter I think.

We don't know the extent of Mr. G's difficulties, but Steve is going to continue looking into it. He found out that Mr. G's favorite restaurant is The Clock, so they are going to have dinner together soon. One thing we know for sure, Mr. G is heart-broken and needs to know that someone cares about him. That's what Friends Across the Ages is all about.

I am so grateful to have volunteers with many different abilities and sensitivities. The story of Mr. G also illuminates how important it is to have volunteers who just hang out and talk to the folks. Sometimes volunteers feel that if they don't have a task like dipping up soup or passing out candles, they aren't needed. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Sometimes I'll suggest to a volunteer who is jobless, "If you see someone sitting alone looking like their dog just got run over, go over and talk to them." Some of you readers come down and join us here and there, and I want you to know that you're always welcome and always needed, whether we have a specific job or not.
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Thank you for all the water donations! We are continuing to bring out extra water three times a week and the folks really appreciate it. You are saving lives.

love and peace to all of you,

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, bugspray, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 6.28/10

2010-07-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

GPD STEPS UP TO THE PLATE

I am deeply grateful and happy to let you know that the Gainesville Police Department is joining in the effort to keep our homeless friends hydrated and well through the extreme heat of this summer. They are accepting donations of bottled water, sun screen and bug spray at their headquarters, 721 NW 6th Street, and taking them out to areas where homeless people camp. They have also created a flyer listing the early warning signs of heat stroke and dehydration - what to do when these symptoms occur - and tips to avoid these problems, even when you have to be outside in the heat. This is beyond wonderful!!! No one knows where the homeless people are better than GPD. Please support them in this project by donating to them.

The Home Van has had a long and positive liaison with GPD. It all started when one of our early chaplains observed a rookie police officer treating a homeless person in a way he deemed unreasonable. He wrote a fire-breathing letter to the editor about this event. Instead of crossing the Home Van off their Christmas card list, senior officers at GPD reached out to us and said, "When there are problems, bring them to us, and we will work with you to resolve them." They have been good to their word, all these years, and have helped us in many ways. We have also been helped by kind friends at the Alachua County Sheriff's Department.

Bottled water can also be donated to the Home Van at 307 SE 6th Street. As usual, space is our limitation, since I run this project out of my living room, but to this point the donation process is working well. Kind people have also been donating money, so that we can take the Van to Sam's Club and load it up with water. We are going out to the woods on weekends and dropping off cases of bottled water. The homeless folks are delighted!!!!! This is a real help for them.

One of our volunteers, Pat Abbitt, has started a recyling program at the Williston Road Camp, for plastic. I hope we will be able to extend that program to other areas as well. The environmental impact of all this bottled water is distressing, but keeping people alive has to be the top priority. I hope one of these years the City Commission will finally decide to run a water truck out to homeless areas in the summer, as many other cities do. (Actuallly, I hope one of these years everyone will be inside!) In the meantime, we do what we can, with the help of our big extended family. Blessings on all of you!!!

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The story below was sent to me by the fabulous Ellen Allen! She started out as a Home Van sandwich maker, and then decided to start her own program, the Good Neighbor Society. She has her "office" at the library, where she talks with people, brings lunch to many, and - most vital of all - helps individuals with the mind-boggling levels of bureaucracy that must be traversed in order to get services. There are many people in the homeless community who, like Oscar and Felix, could make it off the streets if they had a friend and advocate to help them.

THE STORY OF OSCAR AND FELIX

By Ellen Allen./ Founder of the Good Neighbor Society

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last several months helping two homeless men access medical services and navigate the rest of the bureaucracy. The first one, Oscar, has been turned down twice for disability and is now waiting for a court hearing. if I knew at the beginning what I know now, I might have been able to help more with the claim. This man lives in the driver’s seat of his truck. That is the only place there is any room since the rest of the truck is filled with “stuff”. The second man, Felix, has also applied for disability and for public housing. A miracle happened - he got in to public housing. He had been turned down, but was entitled to a hearing. We opted for that and he was not only accepted, but there was an apartment available.
He had been living in the woods since September and was feeling pretty desperate to get out .

A few days after he’d moved in, he invited Oscar to use his shower. They were just hanging out and Oscar started having chest pain, rapid heart beat, and numbness in his arms. Felix called an ambulance. It turned out not to be a heart attack, but a severely blocked left artery in his heart. They put in a stent and released him with prescriptions for four different meds. He has a pretty severe short term memory deficit that does not bode well for keeping up with his meds. I spoke with a social worker at the hospital, explaining his circumstances. The only thing she was concerned with was, would I be available for transport. (Editor's note: In all fairness, hospital social workers are a pretty over-worked, overwhelmed lot. I have often received calls from Shands social workers wondering where a homeless person can stay after discharge - and I don't know either, most of the time).

Felix was so concerned for his friend that he arranged for him to stay with him and has taken on his care, including reminding him to take his meds. He told me it breaks his heart to think about his friend back in his truck, on the street. Bless his heart.

Felix is inordinately clean and orderly. He labels himself as “ocd”. As I said, Oscar has a truck so full of “stuff”” there is only room in the driver’s seat. I have dubbed them Felix and Oscar. They wholeheartedly cotton to it.

Unfortunately, public housing only allows a 15 day stay for any visitor. We are now scrambling to figure out another housed alternative for Oscar. He is 45 years old , smart, but not really able to take care of himself. I’ve been in touch with his family and they are not willing/able to take him in.

Just thinking about the kindness and generosity of Felix brings tears to my eyes. These men are family to me and also to each other. Thanks to arupa for opening the door to so many housed folks so that we can know the humanity of those who are presently not housed.

Oscar and Felix - chapter 2

After much scrambling and a few more miracles, Oscar is about to get off the street/out of his truck. There's one last hurdle. He needs to come up with a $300 security deposit. This is non-negotiable. I figure if enough folks chip in a little, we could do it. Oscar has to be out of Felix's apartment on Monday morning. He should be able to move in to his own efficiency apartment by the end of the week, provided we have the security deposit. Felix is committed to continuing to help his friend and to teach him some independent living skills. i too will be checking in on a very regular basis to help ensure Oscar's stability in his new digs. I feel deep gratitude to Kent, Gail, Karen.

Latest update... I called Oscar's sister, in order to get his parent's phone number. I told her I had gotten subsidized housing for him but that they required a security deposit of $300. I told her I was going to ask her parents for the money. She said she would pay the security deposit. she was VERY happy and grateful to hear that he would be housed. Sooooo....raising money for the deposit is no longer necessary. YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just called Oscar to let him know and he is as delighted as Oscar is able to be. Now we just need to fill out the paper work blah,blah, blah and I think he should be in his apartment by the end of the week. Worst case scenario is he'll be staying in his truck for a few days if I can't get him an interim bed at St Francis House.

I love sharing good news.

with much love and appreciation.
ellen allen
good neighbor society

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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, bottled water, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, bugspray, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 6/1/10

2010-06-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

MESSAGES FROM PAT

Two days from now, on Thursday, June 3 at 6 p.m. at City Hall, Pat Fitzpatrick is asking doctors, nurses, physicians assistants and other knowledgeable people to testify during Citizens' Comment, on the effects of the 130-person meal limit on pregnant women who are turned away, and on their unborn children. Medical professionals who want to testify on the dangers of turning away hungry people with diabetes are also asked to give this testimony. A substantial number of people in the homeless community do have diabetes. Each speaker is allowed 3 minutes.

Pat is also asking people who are willing to fast in front of City Hall for one day, on behalf of those people who are being turned away from lunch at St. Francis House, to contact him at 352-642-6465. He is organizing a project in which one person will fast in front of City Hall every day until all meal limits at St. Francis House are lifted. In other words, if 30 people volunteer for this project, each person will fast in front of City Hall for one day a month, until the limit is lfted.

When the City Commission voted to impose a 130-person limit on meals at St. Francis House, a soup kitchen which had been feeding up to 200-250 people a day, they not only stole food from hungry people, they stole from us our humanity. The only way we can reclaim our humanity, as a community, is to continue to push the City Commission to lift the limit. This effort cannot be accomplished by calling them names and telling them how horrible we think they are. We as a society have all been dancing around the Golden Calf for decades, pressuring our elected officials to do more and more to enhance and protect a bloated sense of entitlement that has spread across our country like a Biblical plague. There are now many of us who feel we have a right to never see a very poor person and never have to hear their sometimes drunken cries of anguish. Through love, through education and through personal committment, putting our stomachs on the line (so to speak), we can heal our human community. We are the only ones who can do this.

HELLO MY FRIENDS

It has been several weeks since I've written a Home Van Newsletter. Like many, if not all of you, I have been overwhelmed by sadness and snowed under by catastrophes. One realization holds true: the cure for this condition will never be found inside a bottle of Prozac or Paxil. The only way to continue walking in the Light is to live each moment, doing the very best you can. It's that simple. The Talmud tells us that each person's job to get up every morning and repair the world. The New Testament tells us that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Our beloved Buddhist community reminds us that Buddha is still standing outside the gates of Pardise, waiting for all souls to be lifted up from suffering and delusion. In living this truth we heal ourselves, retain our sanity, and bring light and healing to those around us, whether homeless or housed. We are all in this together.

Love and blessings to all of you,

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, bugspray, books and games. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

Just Got to Heaven Going to Look Around

2010-04-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

“Won’t you sit down? Lord, I can’t sit down,
cause I just got to Heaven going to look around.”

“I’m going to look around.”
says Raymond,
“I won’t live like an animal,
“I won’t sleep in alleys.
“I won’t live where I can’t build a fire,
where I can’t clean up.
I won’t.
“I’m going to look around.”

Deputy sheriffs with guns and clubs
evicted Raymond from the woods,
from his camp on the banks of Sweetwater Branch,
where he bathed and washed his clothes,
where he used to sit at night and read a book
by lantern light.

“I won’t live like an animal,
I’m going to look around.”

Raymond remembers
the days he used to live inside.

“I have nothing now.”
“I’m always alone.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“I won’t live where I can’t build a fire,
“I won’t,
“I’m going to look around.”

I have no answer, though
I know what it’s like
to lose at musical chairs.
We stand together on the
pieces of ground
underneath the soles of our feet,
breathing in and out,
reviewing what we know,
strung thin like prayer beads:

Homeless people have the legal right
to be on a public sidewalk at night.
All other land forbidden as being
parks, private property,
closed until morning.
Homeless people have the right
to be on a public sidewalk at night,
as long as they don’t sit down.

“I won’t sit down.”

As long as they don’t lie down.

I won’t lie down.”

As long as they don’t sleep.

“I won’t sleep.”

“I’m going to look around.”

“May I breathe the air other people breathe?
Or should I breathe only into my cupped hands?”

“Won’t you sit down? Lord, I can’t sit down,
cause I just got to Heaven going to look around”

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/27/10

2010-03-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

A CONVERSATION WITH 'MOM'

She got her street name because she takes care of people. I met her in the winter of 1994/1995. An overly zealous night manager at one of the local shelters evicted an old man with Alzheimers because he smoked in his room. It was a January night with temperatures in the thirties. After a few choice words about "Why the **** didn't he just confiscate his cigarettes?" Mom took this old guy to her tent and kept him warm through the night. A few months ago she actually managed to get me to do snuff outreach (with my own money, not Van money). She found an old, old man named Earle living in a shack near Tent City. Earle, who was well into his eighties, showed signs of senile dementia. He had a pack of half-starved cats and he himself was not doing so well. Mom got some groceries and cat food from me and then said, "I need five dollars toward a tin of snuff."

Arupa: "You've got to be kidding. We don't do snuff outreach."

Mom (tears running down her face): "He's 86 and he's been dipping snuff since he was 12 and he's just sitting out there jonesing and jonesing..."

Arupa: "Okay. Snuff outreach it is, coming right up."

Mom and I were discussing the economy yesterday. She said that Day Labor had dried up so bad people aren't doing drugs out in Tent City because they don't have the money. I asked if she knew how business was for the ladies who work on SW 13th Street and she told me that it's really down. Now, this is a side of the economic downturn you aren't going to here about on MSNBC - It's BREAKING NEWS in the Home Van Newsletter.

It got me to thinking about the Web of Life with the endless interconnecting tapestry of cause and effect. There is much suffering connected to this Great Recession, and will be for a long time to come. Can it be that there are also little miracles - lotuses growing from the mud - silently sprouting and putting forth roots? People planting vegetable gardens, people playing board games with their children because they can't afford to go out - people in Tent City getting a "time out" from the nightmare labyrinth of doing drugs and turning tricks - a silent place where something new might grow. I believe in this.

BOOKS! GAMES! SOAP!

That's what we need. Hallelujah for Spring and long evenings when people can read and play cards. This summer I am going to emphasize recreation in the Socks 4th Avenue section of the Van, with your help. Art supplies are good also, and anything else you can think of that is fun We are also low on personal hygiene products.

ENJOY THE WEATHER!!!!

Love and blessings,

arupa

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/12/10

2010-03-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

THE NEWS FROM WILLISTON ROAD CAMP

Last time I wrote to you a serious crime had occurred at Williston Road, and we feared that this camp's existence might be endangered. If a serious crime occurs in one of our neighborhoods, it is most unsettling, but we don't have to worry that landlords and mortgage holders will come around and evict us. Our homeless friends do have that worry. I am happy to report that our Williston Road campers are carrying on. GPD has kept a close eye on life at the camp, to make sure serious problems aren't brewing there, but that attention is waning, since all has been going well. Several officers have told me that GPD respects the Williston Road camp, because they work hard at being clean and self-governing.

It is spring at Williston Road, at long last. O'Malley planted a spring garden last December, a little prematurely, but he reports that his potato crop has sprouted. The other big event was the deer. A deer was hit by a car on Williston Road. After GPD left the scene, several of the guys inspected the deer. It had been killed in such a way that there was no visible damage to its body. So they brought the deer into the woods, dressed it down (Is that the right term? As a long-time vegetarian I am not in familiar territory here) and gained 30 pounds of meat, which they salted down and distributed amongst the populace. Then they buried the deer and conducted a little ceremony, thanking the deer.

Another one of the fellows asked me if I had any extra plastic bags he could have. He remarked, a little shame-facedly, that his camp has so many tree roots he can't dig a latrine. So he collects waste, pooper-scooper style, and transports it to a public facility. Now this may be more than some of you want to know, but I think it's important to note how hard some of our homeless citizens work to respect themselves and the environment, and what is involved in that.

BON VOYAGE TO OUR BELOVED REV. DAVE

Reverend David Swanson, known always as 'Rev Dave," one of the Home Van's first chaplains, died last week at the VA Hospice. Rev. Dave was a street minister who was out amongst the homeless community all day, several days a week. He ate lunch at St. Francis House (back when you could do that without displacing someone), hung out at the downtown plaza, and visited outlying camps. He counseled and prayed with people, took them to appointments and bought needed items for them at WalMart. When he was with us, we didn't have Elizabeth and the Home Van Pet Care Project, so he bought both pet food and people food at Bread of the Mighty and took it out to those who needed it.

He baptized people in the homeless community, after a three-month program. Candidates for baptism who had an addiction had to be clean and sober for three months before they could be bapized. During these three months, they were expected to travel with Rev. Dave, doing service. I attended a few of these baptisms. The person had earned their baptism by hard work and struggle, and they were very special events.

He is most famous for the Home Van's Potty Protest, which he initiated. It was about three years ago, I think. The City was locking the downtown public restrooms at dusk and all day Sunday, to the great inconvenience of our homeless friends. Rev Dave and Pat Fitzpatrick barricaded themselves in the downtown men's room at dusk, as a protest. GPD officers were on the scene along with a crowd of supporters (Liz McCulloch even wrote a song, "This can is my can, this can is your can....".) Rev Dave and Pat were arrested and given tickets. This led to a new city policy whereby the restrooms remain open until the park closes, and all day Sunday.

Rev Dave's friends and family wanted his service to be in the downtown plaza, amongst the homeless people he cared about so much, so they scheduled it for immediately after the Home Van's Thursday dinner. It was a beautiful service.

They say no one is irreplaceable, but that hasn't been the case with our Rev Dave. May the Creator send us another one like him, if such there be.

Love and blessings to you all,

arupa
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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, and white tube socks. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601, or can be made online

OUR MISSION

2010-02-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

Mission Statement

The mission of the Home Van is to bring food, clothing, blankets, hygiene supplies and other services to the unsheltered homeless people of the downtown Gainesville area. There are no tests of worth to receive services from the Home Van. We believe that all people are worthy of the necessities of life. We work in partnership with those we serve, for the higher purpose of making our world a more human and loving place.

The HOME Van provides the following services:

· 400 meals a week to homeless people – delivered on Tuesday’s
at 7p.m. and Thursday’s at 4:30 p.m.

· blankets, hygiene products, clothing and other necessities of life for poor and homeless people

· Friendship and personal assistance from volunteer social workers, nurses, lawyers, and chaplains.

HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 2/20/10

2010-02-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

THE CITY COMMISSION FIASCO

Might as well get this topic over with upfront. Despite vast and successful efforts, by Joe Jackson and others, to rally the community in support of dropping meal limits, the City Commission voted to keep those limits except on 3 holidays a year. All but about five of the many people who spoke during Citizen Comment gave compelling testimony in favor of dropping the limits. Joe and his crew did everything right, we had big support, and we lost anyhow. We have, however, became a major burr in the backsides of the Powers That Be, and we need to keep going. It is always like this. Many years ago I and my little buddies stood on a street corner in Norman, Oklahoma, and sold cookies to raise Grayhound busfares to Missisippi for Freedom Summer, while thugs in pickup trucks hurled insults and beer cans at us. It was a long and bloody summer. The road ahead seemed to stretch on forever, and enormous powers were aligned against us.

You keep working for the good and eventually you win. Winning doesn't mean just dropping meal limits. It means establishing, for all times, the principle that it is illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their economic status. It means you can't ghettoize poor people in a compound out on 53rd Avenue, next to two cement plants and a swamp. It means that all members of the human family are invited to the table.

I'll keep you posted on further actions.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT LEE

Lee, the young man who was almost beaten to death out at the Williston Road Camp, is back in North Carolina at his mother's house, and is doing well in his recovery. This was a love triangle turned deadly. Such tragedies happen in all economic strata. One issue that needs to be addressed, after food and shelter issues, is identifying people who are arrested as "homeless," while not so identifying those who are housed. Until sometime in the sixties, African Americans who were arrested were identified by race, and no one else was. Logically, this should have made people think, "Gee, most crimes are committed by white people." Of course it didn't. These arrest reports served as red flags for racism. So it is with the arrests of homeless people. So far, we don't know of any repercussions from the crime at Williston Road Camp, and are praying that there will be none. Willston Road is a long-established camp with a solid track record for stability and good behavior.

THANK YOU

to all of you who donated Mylar blankets! Consider yourself people who have saved lives. We have, knock on wood, gone through this long and terrible winter with no tent fires, no fires in abandoned houses, and no hypthermia deaths. They do tear, but thanks to you all I have had an unending supply. On every driveout I carry a bag of these mylars and the homeless folks ask for them. One night a couple of the Lynch Parkers, who slept out in 30-degree weather, told me, "We felt like baked potatoes." That became my advertising slogan to all those who regarded the mylars with suspicion.

Love and blessings to all of you,

arupa
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Home Van needs peanut butter, jelly, Vienna sausages, white tube socks, candles, tarps and tents. Call 372-4825 to arrange for drop-offs. Financial donations to the Home Van are tax deductible. Checks should be made out to St. Vincent de Paul, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601 Donations can also be made online at http://homevan.blogspot.com/

2010-02-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

DUFFY'S HEART FUND

2010-01-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

When I was volunteering at St. Francis House in the mid-nineties, I met a young woman named Duffy. Duffy, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, became a guest at SFH just before giving birth to a child. Her family took the baby to live with them. Duffy lost her bed at St. Francis House and was living on the streets. One day she came into the lobby and fell asleep in a chair. She looked exhausted beyond measure. Since it is against the rules to sleep in the lobby at St. Francis House, a staff member asked me to wake Duffy up and ask her to leave. I did so. Three hours later Duffy lay down in traffic on West University Avenue and died.

For a long time it has been my goal to establish something beautiful in Duffy's name, so she will not be forgotten and so that we will all be inspired to love and help one another, unstintingly.

Now, with the sponsorship of the Helping Hands Clinic, a free medical clinic for homeless and low-income people that has been helping folks, from their enormous hearts, for the past twenty years, this dream is going to become a reality. Helping Hands Clinic is setting up a special fund for homeless women, to be called DUFFY'S HEART FUND. The Home Van will be helping out with fund-raising, referrals, and errands (like going to WalMart and buying a tent).

DUFFY'S HEART FUND will be used, with discretion, intuition and love, for the special needs of homeless women - both practical and, sometimes, impractical. (The Home Van has a small Heart Fund. I once took $30 from it and bought ferret food. This hungry ferret was a homeless woman's child and best friend and, in any case, like all God's children, ferrets gotta eat). This fund can be used to put down rent and utility deposits for a homeless woman who gets a check but never has deposit money. It can be used for tents, a job interview dress, a motel break for a woman who is on the verge of a melt down, a copay on a prescription, a chain of Christmas lights for a lady who just got an apartment, ferret food....

Donations to DUFFY'S HEART FUND should be in the form of checks made out to Helping Hands Clinic, earmarked for Duffy's Heart Fund, and mailed to P.O. Box 1481 Gainesville, Fl 32602-1481. All donations are tax deductible.

love and blessings to all of you,

arupa

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The Home Van needs tents, tarps, Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter, jelly, candles, white tube socks, mylar emergency blankets and latex surgical gloves in sizes large and medium. Call 352-372-4825 to arrange for drop off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be in the form of checks made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601.

A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GATHERING

2010-01-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, December 23 we went to the downtown plaza for the Home Van's annual Christmas event, when we pass out holiday stockings made by folks from all over Gainesville and Alachua County - families, grade school classes, Girl Scout troops, Sunday Schools, parishioners from many different churches and synagogues, office staffs.... We had an abundance of food, and many wonderful Christmas treats like cookies and homemade fudge.

This year our Christmas party began in a way I would never have anticipated. Danny, one of our homeless volunteers, stood in the open door to the van and said, "I have something to say, and it's something special, so I want you to take off your hats."

The line of some 200-300 people fell silent and hats came off. Danny said, "I lost my daughter this year (Danny's daughter was a soldier in Iraq), so I'm not going to be seeing her this Christmas. I want us to start tonight with a prayer."

He then led the group in a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Without discussion, this prayer was done in the ancient style of call and response.

Although the Lord's Prayer is part of a particular spiritual tradition, it is also the most universal of prayers: "Give us this day our daily bread." "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us..."

It is said that Christmas celebrates a day when God came down to earth to live amongst us. At this Christmas gathering, standing in the December darkness reciting this ancient prayer with several hundred homeless people and their friends from all over Gainesville, I once again felt God among us.

There could not be a better way to start out a New Year that is fraught with uncertainties.

The Home Van began in the fall of 2002, as an outreach to the unsheltered and chronically homeless folks who lived in and around downtown Gainesville. They were small in number, at least compared to now. Many of them were old Vietnam veterans still struggling with the wounds of war. For me, this is a special group because these were the boys I went to high school with. I remember them when they were mowing lawns to buy their first cars, getting up the courage to invite a girl to the high school dance, learning algebra....

In a way, I felt like I was going back to find them, after having deserted them for a very long time.

We saw ourselves as a small group of friends who would minister to this group.

We fell in love with them. Through their courage and patience, they changed who we are.

We had no idea that our little project would turn into major outreach to an ever-increasing number of people who are homeless and hungry. We didn't know that efforts to help the unsheltered homeless people would be stalemated for years on end in a quagmire of bureaucracy and fear. We didn't know that the economy was going to collapse.

Running this outreach out of a couple of livingrooms has become an effort for which the word
"lunatic" was invented. We are part of a tsunami of change.

In the coming year, we will be, as always, taking it one day at a time. In addition, we will be attempting to reinvent ourselves - to learn how to do what we can do, as well as we can, supported by God and our wonderful Home Van angels, among whom I count you, our extended family.

Thank you for everything, and blessings on you.

love, arupa

STORMY NIGHT DRIVEOUT

2010-01-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

Unless there are trees toppling and lawn chairs flying through the air, the Home Van goes out. We figure if they can live outdoors in all kinds of weather, we can take it for two hours. Also, we knew the Salvation Army had closed down entirely for two days, so they would have no dinner unless we went out. I'm sure there are people on this list who donate to the Salvation Army, and that's a good thing, since they run a shelter and soup kitchen that are sorely needed. However, it wouldn't be a bad idea to contact them and suggest that a shelter should be open, not closed, during weather emergencies. You could even throw in a little WWJD, just for good measure. We were glad to be out there with our folks. It always feels good. It was, however, a harrowing drive out. People soaked to the skin, shivering uncontrollably. People whose clothing and blankets had been stolen. People without tents. Newly homeless people terrified of the situation they were in. Worst of all, we could not console ourselves with the thought that all these folks would be going into emergency shelter at St. Francis House at 7 p.m. In the early 1990s the City Commission passed a law requiring all homeless shelters in Gainesville to require police clearances for their guests. A police clearance is a warrants check. The police go onto their computers and see whether the person in question has an outstanding warrant in this state or any other. If he or she does, they are arrested. If they don't they are given a piece of paper to present when they check into shelter. If you don't have a photo I.D., you can't get a police clearance. Gainesville is one of the very few cities in the United States to have such a law. Housed people who check into an emergency shelter are not required to present a police clearance. Many of our homeless people suffer from mental illness and addictions. They have trouble holding on to a photo I.D. Replacing a lost I.D. is also a daunting task. So some of the most vulnerable knew they would be out in the storm all night. One newly homeless man was in a state of terror about this, begging me to come up with a solution. I didn't have one. Equality under the law is one of the cornerstones of a civilized and democratic society. Our City Commission needs to either repeal the police clearance law or require police clearances for all housed people who check into a shelter. If this comes up before the City Commission, someone, either from the podium or the audience, is going to bring up the fact that Danny Rawlings was a homeless person. This would be useful information if there were a demographic profile for serial killers. In reality, serial killers in the United States have included a law student and Republican campaign worker, a railway porter, a data processing clerk, a codes enforcement officer who was president of his Lutheran congregation, and the founder of the Save-a-Lot stores. Oddly enough, there have been no outcries demanding that the UF law school be moved to a feed lot on the far outskirts of the community, and no petitions circulated by people who don't want Lutherans living in or near their neighborhoods. The vast majority of warrants out on homeless people are for the misdeanors of being homeless, such as sleeping in the park after 11 p.m., public urination, open container etc. Homeless people deeply fear and resist being put in jail, because the price tag on these misdeamors can be so high. Most of the time, the homeless arrestee is denied bail because he or she does not have an address. Then they sit in jail for weeks, sometimes months, awaiting a court date. When they finally get into court, they are judged guilty and sentenced to time served. In other words, first they are punished and then they are found guilty. While they are in jail, all their meager worldly goods will probably be stolen, including the tent they live in. If they've managed to find a job, they will lose it. If a homeless man has a wife or girlfriend who is homeless with him, he has to live with the knowledge that she is out there alone, without his protection. If he or she is the caregiver for a seriously ill homeless friend (and this is a common situation), there is the anguish of wondering how this friend is faring. I have known people to stay outside during hurricanes and when the temperature is in the twenties, to avoid going to jail. SAVING LIVES The Home Van does not accept money from any organization that has rules about how we can spend it. All our money comes from you, our extended Home Van family. Last Tuesday that meant you helped us save a life. We found a woman in mortal agony in the downtown plaza. She had been given two prescriptions at the ER - one for an antibiotic and one for an anti-spasmodic drug. She had gotten the antibiotic RX filled at wonderful Publix - who give antibiotics free to poor people. To fill the other RX she needed fifteen dollars. She had been to every agency she knew of, all over town, trying to get the copay for this prescription, to no avail. The medicine in question is classified as a narcotic and is on a list of drugs these agencies are not allowed to pay for. She went back to the ER, but they would not give her the pills (rules). By this time her plumbing had been out of commission for six days and she had been living in the August heat, having to severely restrict fluids. She was crying from pain, unable to sit, lie down, eat or sleep. We gave her the fifteen dollars. Pastor Reggie, a minister who lives in Tent City in order to be a counselor and caregiver there, found her a ride. Thank you one and all, and thank you God, if we have to have emergencies, for giving us those $15 dollar emergencies. love, arupa___________________________________________________________________________The Home Van needs tents, bugspray, Vienna Sausages, creamy peanut butter and jelly, and white tube socks. Call 372-4825 to arrange for drop-off. Financial donations to the Home Van should be made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL All donations are tax deductible.

Happy Birthday Home Van

2010-01-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

Seven years ago today, on September 26, 2002, the Home Van went on its first driveout. Below I have reprinted the poem I wrote for our first birthday. Politically, nothing much has changed - the discussions go on and on and on.... Although we would love to be put out of business by a great tidal wave of compassion and justice sweeping across the land, we continue to be blessed by this work.

One year later, “the homeless,”

discussed like a herd of unruly cows,

to be moved to a new pasture,

for municipal convenience,

scatter across our less-blinded vision

until we see

Opie 12-stepping through the woods,

Otis, silent, like a Sufi saint,

Marcus, who loves sardines,

Arthur cursing the government,

Candy raising rats in her car,

Eric studying beetles in the woods,

Ellen taking a bath out of a plastic pail,

George, whose clothes always look like they’ve

just been ironed,

Jerry, the leader of his tribe,

Charlie, of tattered magnificence,

Pete, his new hat decorated with feathers and

Spanish moss,

Bulldog and Blaze propping each other up

while they enjoy a concert in the park,

Denise and Victoria sleeping in their car on winter nights,

Charles yelling, “I want a pen and notebook. Do you

think I’m stupid?”

Renatta eating canned fruit,

Donna in her scarlet dress dancing on the downtown plaza,

Ed tipping his hat as he says,

“Pray for me. I need a miracle.”

Robert the vegan refusing new shoes

because he’s finally found a job -

for all these, not cows, people,

and many more,

Creator we thank you,

as we find our souls waiting for us

along the path to South Camp,

just off Williston Road,

standing in Lynch Park,

patiently wanting to help us

find our way home.

Arupa Chiarini Freeman

IRAQ VETERANS

2010-01-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

One of our readers asked for more information about the Iraq veterans we are seeing. I don't know how many we are seeing. Except during the Point-In-Time Survey, we never ask people why they are homeless, or any other personal questions. The first Iraq veteran we saw, a year or two ago, was very young and extremely angry. He didn't attack anyone, but he did take his guitar off his backpack and pound it on the sidewalk. I've never seen him again and don't know what happened to him. Another young Iraq veteran was homeless because his family had taken out a restraining order against him, because he was doing them violence. Domestic violence by veterans with severe PTSD is one cause of homelessness among returning soldiers. This young man took full responsibility for what he had done. He knew he couldn't go home until he had gotten treatment. He did take every opportunity to work and gather money for his children. He also bought a bicycle at a garage sale and fixed it up for his son's 12th birthday. And he donated money and bicycles to the Home Van. He has moved on now, to seek better employment opportunities elsewhere.

Julie is a young woman veteran from Iraq. While she was over there, her father, her only surviving parent, died. She came home from Iraq with severe PTSD and nowhere to go. She is living in a tent with two other veterans, both older and with worse medical problems. She takes care of them and brings them food. She is on various waiting lists to get help for herself.

The last time she was here she noticed I have a small electric piano. She said, "Oh, please can I play it! I have been dreaming about being able to play a piano again! Please!" She went over to my little piano and started playing classical music, beautifully, and then segued into a beautiful improvisation she created herself, one that included a mysterious, ominous, relentless beating of drums.

I think it was Ghandi who said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." What better advice is there, for these dark times?

love, arupa
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The Home Van needs peanut butter, jelly, Vienna sausages, white tube socks, bugspray, bottled water and tents. Call 372-4825 to arrange for drop-offs. Financial donations to the Home Van are tax deductible. Checks should be made out to St. Vincent de Paul, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, FL 32601

THE STORY OF KELLY

2010-01-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

Kelly showed up in Lynch Park about two months ago. She is from Long Island. How she ended up in Gainesville I do not know. She has severe asthma, cysts on her knees that make every step she takes painful, and a host of other medical problems. We've had the A Team trying to get appropriate services for her for awhile, but she keeps disappearing - either to the hospital or to the home of a 'friend' who takes her in for a few days when her disability check arrives. Last Tuesday we found Kelly in Lynch Park wearing surgical scrubs with a feeding tube hanging from her stomach. She had been discharged from Shands in this condition. They gave her a liquid that requires refrigeration to put down her tube, along with several medications thatmust be ground up and stirred into this liquid. She tried to get a medical bed at St. Francis House but was told that they were filled to capacity.There is a storefront mission near Lynch Park. I went there, to see if they would let Kelly sleep inside their facility, while we worked something out. I received an extremely cold reception and left them to their activity of singing about Jesus and passing a collection basket. When I went across the street, I found Peanut, Kelly's caregiver, slowly grinding up her pills with a rock, stirring them into the water we brought, and pouring them down her feeding tube. Peanut is chronically homeless and, in all probablity, a crack addict. I wondered who Jesus would recognize as his friend, Peanut or the folks at the mission? Next morning, Sh'mal got Kelly into a nursing home.Patient dumping of homeless and very poor people is a national problem. It has been going on in Gainesville for some time, but this is the most egregious example I have ever encountered. We tried to get a story about this into the Gainesville Sun, but have not succeeded. People can draw their own conclusions about that.service and I would like to be able to do that also.

Take care everyone, love, arupa________________________________________________________________________________The Home Van needs bottled water, peanut butter and jelly, Vienna sausages, tents, bugspray, and sheets. Call 372-4825 to arrange for drop-off. Checks to the Home Van should be made out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, 32601. All contributions are tax deductible.

HOME VAN JOURNAL - MAY 19, 2009

2009-05-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

REMEMBERING OUR MARIA SHRIVER

She was several inches shorter than me, which would be about 4'9" tall. Twenty years ago she looked to be about sixty. For years she pushed her shopping cart around downtown Gainesville and slept, summer and winter, on the bench beneath the big clock. She spoke to no one and did not seek services at St. Francis House or, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere else. She spent her disability check on food, bottled water, and hygiene supplies, which she carefully packed into her shopping cart. I never saw her smile, except one time, which I will tell you about later in this story. The GPD officers assigned to the downtown area watched out for her.

Around the year 2000, Maria came to the attention of Gary Matthews and Mike Shipman of St. Vincent de Paul. They got her into housing and looked after her. Mike or Gary would stop by regularly to make sure she had food or whatever else she might need, like a ride somewhere, the same way people look in on their parents or grandparents to make sure that all is well. Gary tells me that every month she would come in to the SVDP office with whatever was left of her disability check and lay out the money to be counted. Whatever was lacking from her rent money would be made up by SVDP funds.

Over the years I have come to understand that even severe mental illness is not who people are - it is a kind of overlay on who the person is. Our small and silent Maria was what the Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff referred to as a "good householder." She was frugal and worked hard at keeping her life in order. She took care of her money - I have been told that she could break her silence with great ferocity if a suspicious person tried to approach her. She spent her money on what she needed and maintained a routine. Sometimes Freeman and I would see her shopping at Publix and offer her a ride home (otherwise she would take a cab). She accepted our offers, rode in silent dignity, and then thanked us.

The last time I saw Maria she was doing her laundry at the laundromat on NE 16th Street, with the assistance of a young man, maybe 30 something and dressed in a suit and tie. They had a full array of soap, bleach, fabric softener, and were intent on separating whites from coloreds and shaking out each garment before placing it in the machine. Maria was smiling! She had a wonderful smile I had never seen before.

Our Maria Shriver died last week. There was a funeral mass for her at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. We wish you Godspeed Maria. You were one of the silent angels who spoke to my heart and helped it open up.
___________________________________________

BILL AND SHAYNA, who lived in their big white van for two and a half years, are now living in a Section 8 apartment. Bill is an ordained minister and also retired from many years as a steel worker in Chicago. He and Shayna developed health problems and were no longer able to work. Their landlord kept raising the rent, finally so high their disability money could no longer enable them to live inside. Shayna says that living inside is pure, escstatic heaven. It is! The contact high I get - the pure bliss of walking from a bed to a shower - is the best part of this job. Enjoy your lives - we are living in heaven whether we know it or not.

THE GENERAL SITUATION AND WHAT WE NEED

Day Labor in Gainesville has largely dried up. We have always focused on getting tents for elderly and disabled people. The younger folks worked day labor for their tents and other basic needs. Now we have a situation where more and more people are sleeping on the ground, night after night, with no protection from the elements and nowhere to store their belongings. This is a cruel downward spiral that leaves people more and more sick, despairing and unemployable, even when there is work. I know this economic downturn is affecting everyone, but if you can get together the scratch to buy a tent or a tarp for the Home Van, it would be a wondrous act of mercy.

We are also starting to run low on over-the-counter medications. For the last year, thanks to generous donations plus meds available at Bread of the Mighty, we have been able to keep people supplied with pain meds, cold and allergy medicine, stomach medicines, and even vitamins for some of the frailer folks. Bread of the Mighty hasn't had any meds or vitamins for a long time and we only have meds left for about two weeks. With the health care situation being what it is (and soon to get much worse with the closing of AGH), these medications are the difference between heaven and hell, especially for those with intractable toothaches and arthritis. The cheapest place I know to get meds are the various dollar stores. Sometimes you can even get a bottle of aspirin for a dollar.

Thank you again to all the blessed elves who leave Vienna sausages, peanut butter, and protein drinks on our front porch.

Blessings on you all! love, arupa
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Home Van needs Vienna sausages, creamy peanut butter and jelly, white tube socks, candles, bottled water, over-the-counter medications, tents and tarps. Financial donations to the Home Van should be made out to St. Vincent de Paul, earmarked for the Home Van, and mailed to 307 SE 6th Street, Gainesville, Florida, 32601. All donations are tax deductible.

Stories

2009-05-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

THE STORY OF R

This story was told to me yesterday, by Marcia from our sister ministry, Fire of God. R grew up in a home where the father of the family was beating his mother, and sexually abusing his sister on a daily basis. When R was 13 he shot and killed his father and then went on the lam. A year or so later a body was found in a wooded area outside R's home town and police believed that it was R, although no tests were run to confirm that fact. His family held a memorial service for him and the case was closed. In reality, R was not dead. He roamed the United States for the next 30 years, sleeping wherever he could and eating from dumpsters. He believed himself to be doomed and unfit for human society.

Eventually, he wound up in Gainesville and went to one of Fire of God's Monday evening dinners and church services, which are held outside the courthouse in downtown Gainesville. After dinner, Fire of God's pastor, Brother Arnold, preaches a sermon. He is a loving man and a powerful preacher who focuses on love, grace, forgiveness and redemption. He often
tells our homeless friends that no one is lost from God's love, which surrounds them always.
After hearing Brother Arnold's sermon, R went back to his hometown, contacted his sister, and turned himself in to the police. He was given a sentence of five years. Because he has had such a strange, lonely, isolated life, R was not sure whether he actually went to this church service or whether the whole event was a dream. He asked his sister to contact Fire of God. He couldn't remember the whole name, and told her it was a church with the word "fire" in the title and that it holds services in front of the courthouse in Gainesville.

She began making phone calls. On the third call, the pastor she spoke with said - "Oh, you're talking about Fire of God Ministries." He gave her the phone number. She called and spoke with Marcia. Marcia tells me, "We're saving them, one at a time."

MELODY HAS A HOME!

Melody is 50. Until age 45, she was just like everyone else. She worked as a dental hygienist and had an apartment, shelves of books, plants, and a cat. At 45, her epilepsy, which had been under control for many years, came back and she had a series of grand mal seizures. She lost her job and her drivers license and wound up homeless. She had no living relatives to bail her out and she couldn't find a program that fit her. She often told me, "If I was a single
mother, if I was a drug addict, a prostitute, or an alcoholic, there would be a program for me." Melody was an angry and articulate spokesperson for single, homeless women. She was beaten and assaulted numerous times, during her years on the streets, and had raccoons eat their way into her tent during her monthly cycles. She asked, time and again, "Why doesn't Gainesville have a shelter for women?"

Tuesday night Melody told me that she has been accepted into a program that provides six months of transitional housing. In the roar of the crowd (we were slammed with people last Tuesday!), I didn't get the name of the program, but I can tell you, Melody is the happiest woman in Gainesville right now! I hope to see her again and get more
details. She did say that she was asked if she thought she would have a hard time adjusting to life off the streets. She said, "Well, I lived indoors for 45 years. I think I remember how it's done."

What They Like About Us

2009-05-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Two new volunteers, UF students who want to start outreach to the homeless community through their church, joined us on Tuesday's driveout, to meet the community and find out more about their needs. They asked folks what they like about the Home Van. The most frequent response was, "They take our word for things." If someone tells us they need sandwiches or blankets, or socks, for people back at their camp, we believe them. We decided from the beginning to operate on the basis of trust. We would rather be snookered by someone occasionally than treat everyone with suspicion. People used to make up stories, in the beginning, but found out it wasn't necessary. You can have an extra sandwich just because you're extra hungry.

Many agencies would be happy to trust people more, but the vast amounts of paperwork/documentation required by granting agencies, particularly the state and federal governments, doesn't allow them that privilege. We get that privilege from you, our extended family of donators and supporters. When someone is taking advantage of us in a substantial way (like selling a tent we gave them to buy drugs), other homeless people quietly inform us. When people are treated with trust, they become self-policing. People who have had a good week at the Day Labor, sometimes donate to us - amounts ranging from $1 - to $10.

What works is treating people like relatives. Some you can loan money to and you'll get it back. Some you loan money to and kiss it goodbye. Some arrive early to help with Thanksgiving dinner, and some you hope won't get drunk and pass out into the mashed potatoes. Most of them you love and some you put up with. The homeless community is just like that.

Letter from Pete

2009-04-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

When Howard Dean was governor of Vermont, he did some research and discovered that the cheapest and most effective way to deal with homelessness was to give people homes, a policy that he instituted in Vermont. My friend Pete, who was homeless in Gainesville for many years,
expressed the same theory in a letter to me, that I am going to share with you:

"It is noble to feed, clothe and provide other basic necessities to people in need to enable them to better cope with day to day survival. Food solves the hunger problem, clothing solves the nakedness problem, etc. But homeless people need homes. Simple, but it never seems to be dealt with on that level (or if not never, way too seldom).

"There are billions of government and charity dollars spent annually (much of it misspent) on 'poverty.' There is Habitat for Humanity for underemployed and/or overly 'prolific' families. They build these people permanent homes. There is enough tax and charitible money to provide permanent housing for most of the true local homeless. Some homeless have mental issues which would require more than just a livable home. A few people actually choose to be homeless (not many).

"Some of Gainesville's so-called homeless are truly 'transients' who are just passing through or taking a 'hobo vacation' from the winter up north. These people could be dealt with by being allowed to camp temporarily or staying at a transient shelter (such as St. Francis House or the Salvation Army). Many homeless are able-bodied or otherwise employable, have long-time connections to the community, but are prevented from 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' by impossible living conditions which keep them tired, infirm, unhygienic etc., and make them less capable. Permanent housing could fix this for many (I have done, a-hem, personal research in this).

"I'm all for feeding, clothing, giving sleeping bags, hygiene items, medical care etc. to homeless and needy folks. But, ONLY HOMES WILL SOLVE HOMELESSNESS. The 'powers that be' are extremely adverse and averse to GIVING people homes. But many
otherwise capable people are totally or greatly incapacitated by homelessness (a major hurdle is to convince the Powers that Be, that they won't be killing the 'Protestant work ethic'). It could definitely be done without spending more money. Just a different direction with the
same amount of funds. And there would be hope of people actually becoming more self-sufficient."

Sincerely,
Peter

Dumpster Diving....

2009-04-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

We've been hearing through the grapevine that a group of campers across from the Food Lion on Hawthorne Road would like visits from the Home Van. Yesterday we stumbled around in the woods until we found them. Winston is living there, James who used to live in the woods off Pistol Alley, and a couple more. Winston's health is fragile and his friends have been very concerned about his nutrition. I will be able to bring him vitamins and energy drinks from the Food Bank now that we've found him. We will also be bringing them a shovel and big
plastic bags for camp beautification. This is a camp where people have a lot of problems, but also have a strong faith in God. We enjoyed talking with them. They have been surviving by dumpster diving behind the Food Lion.

The social needs of homeless people, and all of us, for that matter, can be just as important as food. These guys were eager to talk, share news, and hang out. As the days get longer we will do more of that. Yesterday we had to leave to get to other wooded areas before the sun disappeared.

Dumpster diving is actually a pretty good way to survive. Stores throw out enormous quantities of food that is at or near the date of expiration, most of it still wrapped. The guys who dumpster dive know when the store puts the food out and get it promptly. Johnny Leash, one of our homeless friends, has his own little outreach program of dumpster diving for food on behalf of an AIDS patient and an old veteran he knows, both of whom are housed but have little money for food. Robert the Vegan also dumpster dives on behalf of other people. In
San Antonio, Texas there is a a whole colony of voluntarily homeless people who dumpster dive on behalf of the chronically homeless population. I read about them on the Internet. They are mostly young folks who are making a statement - they believe our society has become so morally corrupt and wasteful that they have left it behind to live in solidarity with homeless people, reclaiming what society throws away. WAY TO GO!!!! As an old sixties kid, this just dazzles me. What if they gave a government and nobody came?

Goodby to Tony

2009-04-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Tony, a long time member of the Sweetwater Branch Community,
died yesterday morning at Shands Hospital, after suffering a stroke earlier
this month. He was in his forties and worked as a house painter. Tony was
also a singer-songwriter. Despite the personal demons that resulted in
chronic homelessness for Tony, he was an incredibly hard worker, right up
to the very onset of his final illness, and he never lost touch with his music. Tony
and his partner Dusty had one of the nicer camps at Sweetwater. They
had a large tent with a double bed, a coffee table, and a television hooked
up to a car battery. Outside Tony had created a patio area, under a tarp,
with shelves fastened to a tree, where they kept food, a clothesline, and
outside the patio, a fire pit for cooking. They had several cats. The last
few months of Tony's life they moved into a house trailer with friends.

A year ago I visited Tony and Dusty at their camp and Tony asked me if
he could audition to play music for the Home Van's third birthday party, which
was to take place at the Downtown Plaza. He brought a battered guitar out of
their tent and sang a song he had written himself, called "Hard Times," about
a family living in poverty. It was a beautiful song, in the tradition of Waylon
Jennings and Willie Nelson. Tony's scratchy, soulful voice did the song justice.

The day of our party, Tony brought his band with him, The Sweetwater Branch Boys,
made up mainly of homeless musicians. They played on stage and they
were good! It was a wonderful party.

Bad Decisions

2009-04-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

Many people wind up homeless because of bad decisions, such as marrying the wrong
person, taking the wrong job, or getting involved with drugs and alcohol. Enormous
numbers of housed people have also made bad decisions - in fact, the very same ones -
but had money and family support, or made these bad decisions in more forgiving times.
Paris Hilton and George Bush can make bad decisions, but poor people can't afford it.

One of our long-time friends, whom I will call Celeste, has a long history of bad decisions,
and has now entered the Bad Decisions Hall of Fame. After years of being homeless or
marginally housed, she received an insurance settlement for several thousand dollars.
We hoped that she would rent an apartment or buy a reliable car (Celeste works
steadily at low-paying jobs). Celeste bought two horses. She has been couch-surfing
while all her money goes to feeding and stabling these horses. She has now decided
to take the horses to Ocala, riding one while holding on to the other by a tether, and
live with them in the Ocala National Forest.

In a world of bad decisions, Celeste has raised the concept of bad decisons to the
level of epic poetry.

Something may happen to interrupt this plan. Celeste has an uncanny ability to land
on her feet, somehow, someway. I'll keep you posted.....

Rainy Night Driveout

2009-04-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

The serious rain began just as we were leaving. First we went up to Waldo Road
and found Marti waiting for us at the bus shelter across from the woods where she has her camp.
Marti's happiness and loving spirit make it a great pleasure to visit her. She has had a multitude of obstacles to deal with, beginning with a childhood of abuse, and has been homeless for most of her life. Marti trusts in God, loves people, and shares whatever she has with those who need it.
I would like to see Marti on some program such as Larry King Live, sharing her philosophy with a fearful world.

Then we went down to Williston Road. No one was waiting for us so we decided to walk up as far
as Dusty's camp. They thought we wouldn't come because of all the rain, but, as I explained,
we are the Home Van Idiots and a little rain doesn't stop us. Dusty and Tony have used a big
tarp and stakes to create an outdoor living room, with chairs and cats and guitars. We visited with Dusty, Tony and Olan and then moved on to the Tent City area to see Ray, Kevin and Wanda.

We had our usual fare last night - PB&Js, bananas, and boiled eggs, plus five gallons of wonderful
homemade chicken soup brought by Katie.

Then we went downtown where our folks were waiting for us in a covered area I won't mention, since it is frowned on for them (and us) to be there. We served dinner and had a great time schmoozing with people.

We almost didn't go to Lynch Park, since we rarely find people there when it's raining, but we decided to drive by and look. Thank goodness we did! There were a bunch of people standing under the overhang of the convenience store, and more people appeared as we were serving. I still had a bunch of dry t-shirts in the back, which folks were glad to get.

Primal Scenes...

2009-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

On some driveouts we experience moments that will be etched in our memories forever. Last Tuesday wewere in Lynch Park. No one seemed to be around, so we were getting ready to leave when Terry came running across University Avenue and through the park, screaming over and over again, "I am so cold! I am so hungry!"

Terry is in her thirties. She is about 4' 10" tall and weighs maybe 70 pounds. Tuesday night she was wearing thin slacks and a tank top. She recognized our van. The old grey Home Van has been prowling the streets of Gainesville looking for peoplewho need us for more than four years. Before that, it was the Breakfast Brigade Van and went to the day labor agencies, bringing Kelli Brew's wonderful home-made bread, boiled eggs, and fresh fruit to the workers.

I first met Terry a few years ago when we were touring homeless campsites with Commissioner Long. She knew him because she used to work at a dry cleaners where he dropped off his clothes. Having a public officialout in the woods made Terry nervous, so she sang gospel songs, I think to comfort herself. At one point shestopped and said to me, "When I was 12, my mother died and my father broke me in."

Many homeless women, and virtually all women who work in prostitution, as Terry does, were the victims of long-term sexual abuse in childhood. Terry has multiple serious addictions. Still, she has a bright spirit, andwe are always glad to see her. Thank God, that night we had a warm turtle-neck sweater and a jacket, in her size. Often we are tapped out of warm clothing by the time we reach Lynch Park. I am grateful to the Home Van, to all of you who make it possible, and to all the brave and beautiful people we meet out in the parks and woods of Gainesville.

Hard Times....

2009-04-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

KIT-KAT came by to see me yesterday. Many of you have seen her downtown, trundling along with a shopping cart or a little red wagon, with her dog and all her worldly possessions within it. Sh'mal moved her into an apartment shortly before Christmas - and then went to Walgreens and got her a string of Christmas lights! She looks great - so thoroughly coiffed and shiny and happy I barely recognized her. Miracles happen when people are able to live indoors.

These miracles are not easy to come by. Landlords who are renting out roach-infested, substandard apartments in crack neighborhoods require credit checks and background checks before they will rent to someone. You have to pass a drug test to get a job flipping burgers.
It wasn't always like this. People with problems used to be able to rent rooms and get casual employment, pretty much just by showing up for it. Then they could go to community mental health centers that took drop-ins and charged a sliding scale that started out as low as a dollar a session. Public and community colleges had very low tuition and troubled "youts" could even go to school while they put their lives back together.

During the 1960s a lot of lives needed to be put back together. The 1950s was a period of silence and repression in our country. Alchol and pill addiction, child abuse and domestic battery took place behind closed doors while nearly everyone looked the other way and pretended it wasn't happening. A friend of mine once told me a story that is emblazoned on my brain forever, because it so typifies the era I grew up in. Her father was an alcoholic. One day he was passed out on the couch in the formal "parlor" where guests were entertained, just at the time the
family minister was due to come by for his weekly, 20-minute pastoral call. Her mother threw a couch cover over her father and had all the children sit on top of him, in a row, during the reverend's visit. The reverend may or may not have been taken in by this ruse, but if he wasn't he never said anything. That's how family problems were handled in the 1950s.

Little wonder that the teenagers and young adults of the 1960s turned the world upside down in our desire to "let it all hang out." The safety net we needed to get us through these years was in place. Now it isn't. If you have addictions, mental illness, emotional problems, you better have money or a family that will put up with you, or you are going to end up in a tent in the woods, or, like Kit Kat, sleeping behind a building next to a dumpster.

Legions of brave social workers, ministers, and volunteers are working on this problem - one person at a time. Someday we will prevail. It is a law of the universe that pendulums don't swing in one direction forever.

Homeless Poems

2009-04-04T16:35:00.001-07:00

Homeless Poems roam

alleluia alleluia

Real World

god-homed chambers of the poor,

green-lace cascades,

white bells tumbling down,

golden trumpets drifting through the air,

running water, sweet water, sweet water branch,

vast grandmothers with witching hair,

branches raised in prayer,

standing guard this sacred ground,

sweet jesus beer, broken bones

beneath the Bohdi tree where he

is bathed by stars and wind

the homeless poems sing

alleluia alleluia

for broken hearts where ibis fly,

where sand cranes bless the morning air,

where muddy hosannas of snakes in their caves,

along the running water, sweet water, sweet water branch,

witching hair,

branches raised in prayer,

alleluia alleluia

THE LIFE OF EDGAR PEREZ

2009-04-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Edgar Perez, a homeless man we knew from the early days of the Home Van, left this
world yesterday. I want to talk about Edgar, not just because I cared about him, but because his
story is important. Edgar was born and raised in a high-crime, high-poverty neighborhood in the Bronx. He became a gang member and drug dealer at a young age. He married and had children. One day his young daughter said to him, "Daddy, I want to be just like you when I grow up." This was a wake-up call to him. He imagined his daughter, whom he loved so much, growing up to a life of drugs, guns, jail, and early death. Edgar quit the gang, quit dealing drugs, and moved his family to Florida.

His marriage did not survive all these upheavals, and Edgar ended up living in the woods and working day labor. His wife, however, got a good job and his daughter graduated from high school and went on to attend college.

Edgar was a happy person for the first few years we knew him. He was independent, going to day labor every day and meeting his own needs. He loved sitting around the campfire with other homeless guys, at the end of the day. He loved to laugh and could tell many a good story.
Then Edgar was diagnosed with cancer. In the course of treatment, other medical problems emerged. He applied for and received Disabililty, Medicaid, and an apartment at Sunrise Residence Inn. Although he faced medical challenges, he had a good attitude and hoped to overcome his problems.

One day Edgar was in the parking lot of the Sunrise Inn when an altercation broke out between two police officers and a suspect they were attempting to apprehend. The suspect had a gun. The police officers asked Edgar to come to their assistance and Edgar, according to his own account, froze. All three people involved in the fight were carrying guns. He was scared and didn't know what to do. He didn't have a cellphone or even a land phone in his apartment, where he might have dialed 911. After the suspect was apprehended, the police officers arrested Edgar and charged him with failure to come to the assistance of a police officer. He spent several months in jail, since the bail was more than anyone could come up with. While he was in
jail, his Disability check and Medicaid were taken away from him.

Egar finally got out of jail after the charges against him were dropped, but he did not get his Disability and Medicaid back. He had to reapply, which turned out to be a long and torturous process. He never did get either one back. He could no longer receive the medications he needed. He became depressed and pretty much gave up on life.

Edgar lost his benefits before he was found guilty of anything, and they were not restored
to him even after the charges against him were dropped. This is not an isolated instance. Homeless people and very poor people are "guilty until proven innocent." As far as I'm
concerned, Edgar was killed by the government.

Segregation, injustice, and oppression based on economic status is, in my opinion, THE civil rights issue of our time. It is multi-faceted and pandemic. All persons of conscience need to be involved in the struggle to restore civil liberties and full citizenship to poor and homeless people.

Here is what we need to remember about Edgar: Edgar loved his children and he managed, through his own efforts, to give them a far, far better life than he ever had. He was a happy guy who worked, took care of himself, and helped others whenever he could. He was a candle in the darkness of our times. In memory of him, we need to keep our candles shining brightly, however dark and long the night. Goodbye Edgar. We love you.

Two Dollars

2009-04-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

This year the din of "Hark the Herald Tribune Sings, Advertising Wondrous Things"
(thank you Tom Lehrer) has been so incessant, I've felt tempted to spend December in a cave,
eating boiled groats, until my bah humbugs were banished by a gift we received from Linda.
Linda is one of our more mysterious visitors. She comes to the van for dinner every Tuesday and Thursday, speaking with no one, and then disappearing. I don't know for sure that she's homeless, but the fact that's she's always wearing a backpack suggests that she is. She is reserved, and does not invite conversation. Once I asked her if there was any other kind of help we could give her, such as referrals to other agencies that might be able to help her with housing or employment or anything like that. She told me that she is fine and has plans. That was many months ago.

Two weeks ago Linda gave me a $2 donation for the Home Van. I folded my hand around the dollars and said, "This is a bus pass." She smiled at me and said, "Yes. And it's six stamps or four phone calls." We stood together for a moment, marveling at this, and then she disappeared.
I've been thinking about all you can do with two dollars. It's also a piece of chocolate, a cup of hot coffee on a cold morning. At the dollar store it is twenty utility candles, enough to sit in one's tent and read every night for a month, a pair of reading glasses, a pack of cards, two rain ponchos...

Two dollars is connection, travel, comfort, light...

Two dollars is everything...

These Are Human Beings

2009-04-04T10:21:00.001-07:00

Not everyone goes into cold night shelter, no matter how cold the night. Some are trapped in the iron cage of mental illness and addiction. Some
don't have a photo I.D., and cannot, therefore, get the police clearance the city mandates (a police clearance is a warrants check). For many years, advocates have been asking the city commission to repeal this cruel law that results in human beings spending the night outdoors when the temperatures are in the teens and twenties, to no avail.

Small faith-based missions and some individual citizens go out on cold nights with blankets and hot food. The suffering we see still leaves us in a state of stunned disbelief. Last Thursday night we found Martha stretched out on the sidewalk next to what homeless people call "the pee tree." (In order to have clean ground to lay on and keep their belongings, one tree is designated as an outdoor latrine of sorts.) Martha, a woman with asthma and diabetes, who is in late middle age, was sobbing in pain, because she had twisted her ankle, or maybe even broken it, in a fall. Her friend Terry wanted to call the paramedics, but Martha was refusing. Terry asks, "How am I going to get her to my tent? She can't walk. She's going to freeze out here." Finally Terry decides to walk across the street and ask the paramedics to come. She yells at them, "Martha needs help." A male voice yells back, "Martha? Okay." A few minutes go by and we decide to go over to the fire station and put in another plea. We get there and see the paramedics walking our way.

In the meantime, Steve is helping a drunken man who is slumped in front of a dumpster on a urine-soaked blanket. He is angry, but Steve manages to coax him into eating a cup of hot soup. The man then passes out and Steve covers him with a silver emergency blanket. He will live through the night.

These are human beings. Most of them are victims of war, illness, disabilities, abuse and poverty. Even if that were not true, none of them deserve this. The state gives shelter, food and medical care to people convicted of heinous crimes, while ignoring and denying the suffering of these human beings.

There is a sense of deep, ancient living prayer in these acts of mercy. We are out in the dark and the cold, in a vast and incomprehensible universe. Every hand that stretches out with a cup of soup or a blanket, is a hand extended to God saying, "We are here. We are still here. Please be with us. Please have mercy on us."

Janel

2009-04-04T10:15:00.001-07:00

Janel Minish McMillan, one of the greatest souls and most bright and shining stars ever to grace our homeless community, and to rise up from it, died this past weekend, suddenly and unexpectedly. It is believed that she died from an aneurysm. For those of you who knew her, her service will be this coming Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. at Celebrations Methodist church, 9501 SW Archer Road.

Janel was a homeless alcoholic for almost ten years. When I met her she was living in a little open shed behind University Music Store on West University Avenue, with several other homeless people. The living conditions there were so terrible we called it the "black hole of Calcutta." Over the next few years I don't think I ever saw Janel sober.

I often say that I learn a lot from homeless people. One thing I learned from Janel is that only God knows what potential a human being has. I often saw Janel as a hopeless case, and one who got on my nerves considerably (not that any of us are improved by large quantities of alcohol, being Irish I can personally testify to that). Then a miracle happened.

One day Janel was in the downtown plaza and she went over to a man wearing a suit and tie - she had no idea who he was - and said, "My name is Janel and I need help." This man was the executive director of Meridian! He made a phone call and Janel went immediately into the 3 day detox program (getting someone into detox immediately in Gainesville is impossible - but not when a miracle is happening.) Two days later this man (whose name I don't know) went to the detox facility to check on Janel. She was doing well, so he enrolled her in Meridian's 30-day rehab program (another miracle - to get into this program without insurance.)

I saw Janel after she got out of Meridian. At first I didn't recognize her, and then I almost burst into tears. I had never before seen such a transformation in a human being. She was radiating light.

With the help of Gail Monahan of the Alachua County Housing Authority, Janel and her partner, Michael McMillan, got an apartment. Janel got a job. The last time I spoke with her, she was planning to enrol at Santa Fe. This was all a few years ago. During those years she worked steadily on her life and never wavered once. She and Michael joined Celebrations Methodist Church, and Janel started singing in their choir. This church became the center of their lives. They got married there, in a beautiful ceremony and Janel and Michael looked like the happiest people on earth.

After leaving the homeless community Janel used her voice to help other homeless people, and to reach out to the community. She wrote a beautiful Speaking Out Column in the Gainesville Sun, about her experiences of being a homeless alcoholic and then becoming healed. She gave testimony before the City Commission several times, speaking with total honesty about her life and telling them that homeless people can change if they are given a chance.

We are planning to plant a tree in Janel's honor. I know nothing about selecting and planting trees. I could use some guidance from the gardeners on this list about what tree to buy and how to plant it.

My life is forever enriched by having known Janel.

Iraq Veterans

2009-04-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Story of Kelly

2009-04-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Kelly showed up in Lynch Park about two months ago. She is from Long Island. How she ended up in Gainesville I do not know. She has severe asthma, cysts on her knees that make every step she takes painful, and a host of other medical problems. We've had the A Team trying to get appropriate services for her for awhile, but she keeps disappearing - either to the
hospital or to the home of a 'friend' who takes her in for a few days when her disability check arrives. Last Tuesday we found Kelly in Lynch Park wearing surgical scrubs with a feeding tube hanging from her stomach. She had been discharged from Shands in this condition. They gave her a liquid that requires refrigeration to put down her tube, along with several medications that must be ground up and stirred into this liquid. She tried to get a medical bed at St. Francis House but was told that they were filled to capacity.

There is a storefront mission near Lynch Park. I went there, to see if they would let Kelly sleep inside their facility, while we worked something out. I received an extremely cold reception and left them to their activity of singing about Jesus and passing a collection basket. When I went across the street, I found Peanut, Kelly's caregiver, slowly grinding up her pills with a rock, stirring them into the water we brought, and pouring them down her feeding tube. Peanut is chronically homeless and, in all probablity, a crack addict. I wondered who Jesus would recognize as his friend, Peanut or the folks at the mission? Next morning, Sh'mal got Kelly into a nursing home.

Patient dumping of homeless and very poor people is a national problem. It has been going on in Gainesville for some time, but this is the most egregious example I have ever encountered. We tried to get a story about this into the Gainesville Sun, but have not succeeded. People can draw their own conclusions about that.

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