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
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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/
Friday, August 12, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/16/11
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/
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/
Friday, July 1, 2011
HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 7.1.11
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/
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/
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Home Van Newsletter 5.29.11
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
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
Sunday, April 10, 2011
HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 4/10/11
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
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
Sunday, March 27, 2011
HOME VAN NEWSLETTER 3/26/11
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/
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/
Saturday, March 19, 2011
ADDICTION AND THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY
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.
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.
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