The idea behind the ordinance is to curb aggressive panhandling by regulating just how and where you can do it. In addition to steering clear of ATMs and pay parking stations, panhandlers also cannot threaten people, swear at them, or block them as they walk down the street.
Supporters have argued the ordinance is aimed at restoring a sense of safety in downtown Seattle.
"The whole ordinance is designed to change behavior on our streets, to make our streets and sidewalks safe for everyone, including the homeless," said council member Tim Burgess at Monday's meeting.
"It is not OK for a person to use menacing and threatening gestures to intimidate someone into giving them money," saud George Allen of the Chamber of Commerce.
Opponents, however, have claimed the rule is too vaguely written and therefore, is susceptible to abuse.
"The idea that we criminalize people because they're poor is very scary to all of our people who are out there, doing the service," said Rev. Monica Corsaro. "We believe in a collaborative way."
A violation of the ordinance is a civil infraction that could result in a $50 fine.
Marvin Tomlinson has lived in Tent City on and off since the homeless enclave was founded about four years ago in a patch of woods between railroad tracks and a highway off-ramp.
Fighting crack and alcohol addictions, he has found life a struggle since leaving prison in 2002 after serving 16 years for manslaughter.
But he has also found a purpose as he saws logs and throws them into a fire pit which camp cooks will use to make supper from donated potatoes and canned beans.
Tomlinson, 43, looks over the tents in the community he helped build. "This right here," he said, "is an accomplishment."
But it might go away.
The Camden County Community Development Program wants to shut down the self-governing society by Thursday, saying its residents need to find new places to live _ a cold turkey approach to reducing homelessness.
The eviction notice is startling for the people who make homes in Tent City, a place officials have tolerated, even as it grew from a few people to at least 100 last summer. It's on the brink of closure partly because the founder asked officials to help its residents.
Social service agencies say they're not sure there are enough spaces for the diaspora that could follow after kicking everyone out. And while some of the residents say they would be grateful to have roofs over their heads, others just want to be left alone.
Glenn Neil works, when he can get it, unloading chocolate from ships at a Camden port. He doesn't like the curfews at shelters, and sleeping on the streets is unsafe, he said.
Tent City _ or Transitional Park, as its leaders have been calling it lately _ is better for someone who can't afford an apartment, Neil said. He's been there about five months and isn't sure what he'll do if it closes.
"The government's plan is starting to bite me in the butt," he said.
It's an unusual policy. Cities are more likely to confiscate and destroy the property of the homeless than to monitor and store it.
It's part of a strategy — which also includes strict enforcement of laws banning camping and panhandling — "that makes it a crime for people to live in public spaces," says Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homeless & Poverty.
"Communities have taken no care whatsoever of the personal property, and that sends a powerful message to the homeless that they should move on," says Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Los Angeles.
The ACLU and other groups have filed lawsuits against several cities that conduct property raids. They've met with some success, notably in Fresno, Calif., which in 2008 agreed to a $2.3 million settlement.
The park rangers in St. Louis appeared to be in violation of a 2005 settlement under which the city agreed not to destroy the personal property of any homeless person.
Clean Up Or Punishment?
"If you as a community cannot afford to properly house the individual and their possessions, you cannot act on that negligence by taking away a person's property," says Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. That group, along with others, took the city of St. Petersburg, Fla., to court over the issue.
But last week, federal Judge Steven Merryday dismissed most of the accusations the advocacy groups had made against the city.
One fifth of foster children nationally landed in county custody - or languished there, as housing issues delayed family reunification - because of inappropriate housing, according to the Child Welfare League of America. A third of the nation's foster children have at least one homeless or "unstably housed" parent, according to the league.
Desensitized bureaucrats too often equate poverty with neglect and seize children away from biological parents whose only "offense" is hardship, critics charge.
And once kids are in the system, it can prove insurmountably difficult to get them out.
Parents petitioning to get their children back in Philadelphia typically wait five months between hearings, local parent-advocates say.
Because federal law requires social-service agencies to place foster children in permanent homes - biological or adoptive - after 15 months in county custody, biological parents might have just two or three chances to get their children back.
"There is not endless time to resolve some pretty serious problems," said Kathy Gomez, managing attorney of the Family Advocacy Unit of Community Legal Services, who represents hundreds of parents in custody cases.
...
Under the Pennsylvania Juvenile Act, the list of reasons why children can be placed in county care is vast and varied: Physical or sexual abuse; delinquency under age 10; the death of or abandonment by parents; parental behavior such as drug abuse that endangers the child; the child's habitual disobedience or truancy; and so on.
Poverty is not on the list.
But poverty is a common denominator in many of the families whose children end up in foster care. It invites authorities' scrutiny, and snowballs into other issues that could prompt removal or delay reunification, child advocates say.
"It's easy to come under child-protection observation when you're poor," Gomez said. "And there's no room for error when you're poor: Once something goes wrong, things just tend to spiral."
Housing problems frequently result.
Parents struggling to pay rent might not have money to cover utilities or maintenance and repairs, creating living conditions that social workers might deem unsafe for children, Gomez said. Others who can't afford child care and transportation costs might miss so much work that they get fired - and without a paycheck to pay rent or a mortgage, they lose their housing, she said.
"Lack of housing is not legal grounds for removal, but homelessness, housing problems and residence in low-income neighborhoods all result in a greater likelihood of CPS [child-protective services] being involved," said Corey Shdaimah, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Maryland who has studied the correlation between poverty, housing and child welfare issues.
Ruth White, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, agreed: "Child welfare won't say that they have actually separated a family because of housing. But it totally happens."
Growing need, shrinking resources and a shift in the face of homelessness from male panhandlers to entire families are challenging Olive Branch in ways rarely seen in its long history, President and CEO David Bates says.
"There are more people in the shadows," he says. "This is our busiest year ever." People who once donated to the mission are now clients. Sometimes mattresses fill the shelter's dining room to accommodate everyone.
Since the recession began, more of the people who make their way to the mission's shelters in a former monastery on the city's South Side were laid off from their jobs, lost homes to foreclosure or were wiped out economically by medical bills.
Patients are dropped off by assisted-care facilities after their insurance benefits are exhausted, Bates says. Eighteen-year-olds who have aged out of foster homes and a growing number of veterans end up here.
...
The mission, whose founders were members of the Free Methodist Church, provides meals, beds, addiction treatment and employment and housing assistance. It is the city's oldest rescue mission. Only violent individuals and sex offenders are turned away. No one is required to sit through a church service before they eat. "An empty stomach has no ears," says Bates, whose parents were missionaries in Africa.
Cuts in state and city funding have depleted programs that aid the homeless, Bates says, and layoffs and furloughs at social-service agencies have disrupted assistance. The recession also reduced the donations Olive Branch depends on for three-fourths of its annual $2 million budget.
"We're not going to see the effects of the recession being over for a long time," says Hebron Morris Jr., a program coordinator. "I think it will be years."
...
Charrse Liddell never thought she'd be homeless. Last summer, she was renting an apartment, planning to return to school and looking for an overnight job so she could spend days in classes and caring for her six children. Then the bottom fell out.
"It was the economy," says Liddell, 32. "I couldn't find a job. I was trying my best to keep the rent going and I couldn't. I got evicted." She arrived at the shelter in October. "I let my kids down, let myself down," she says.
Liddell hopes to find a subsidized apartment and a job soon. "I'm on the right track now," she says.
Many of the job seekers came to North Dakota without researching jobs or housing, said Louis "Mac" McLeod, executive director of the Minot Area Homeless Coalition. They arrive to find they are unqualified for the work that exists, or if they land a job, they can't get housing, which is scarce.
"If you got a roof over your head, stay there," McLeod advised. "We want people to come to North Dakota, but we don't want people coming here and not being able to survive."
Most don't understand how severe North Dakota's winters are, he said: "Put your hand in a freezer for five minutes - welcome to North Dakota."
Eric Cisneros, 27, drove 700 miles from Colorado to North Dakota about three weeks ago on a tip from a buddy who landed a job in the oil fields. He's been spending nights in his truck or staying with new acquaintances in Minot. The town of about 36,000 is home to a college and a U.S. Air Force Base but has no permanent shelter for the homeless.
Most of North Dakota's smaller cities and towns lack shelters and other services for the homeless. That may be because large-scale homelessness hasn't been a widespread problem before.
Last year, 987 homeless people were counted in a survey that recorded people encountered by volunteers in a single day, said Michael Carbone, executive director of the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People. That was an 18 percent increase from the previous year's count of 836. This year's figures aren't yet available.
Cisneros said he plans to tough it out even though North Dakota is "probably the coldest place on the planet."
In Colorado, he worked as a laborer and carpenter, competing with dozens of people for each job. In Minot, he found a job as a cashier at a truck stop and has applied for oil industry jobs.
"Initially, it's been tough in North Dakota but in the long run, I think it will be worth it, because there are jobs here," Cisneros said.
North Dakota has about 8,500 unfilled jobs and the lowest jobless rate of any state, at about 4 percent.
“A lot of these people have maybe a sheet on four sticks over their heads right now,” said Niurka Piñeiro, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration. “It’s really urgent that we get these tents so we can provide a little better cover from the elements.”
Haitian and international officials, aware that these camps may become permanent, are hotly debating locations. In Phase 2 of the plan, private companies would be contracted to build apartment complexes and homes with the help of residents living in the tents.
“We are hoping that this concentration of people will lead to work,” said Patrick Delatour, the minister of tourism, after a meeting with President René Préval. “They will help build their own housing.”
Officials with the migration agency have argued for sites inside cities close to employment, while Haitian government ministers have stressed the need to build as much shelter as fast as possible.
Already, work has begun on government land near the suburb of Croix des Bouquets. United Nations troops from Brazil have begun leveling the ground in preparation for a tent city for around 30,000 people. Officials hope to house 100,000 people with the dozen or so sites selected so far, which include the lawn of the prime minister’s office, but getting the tents to Haiti remains a difficult challenge.
A handful arrived Wednesday, and a larger shipment from Turkey and other countries came Thursday, but Ms. Piñeiro said thousands more would be needed. “We are really looking for family-sized tents,” she said. “But at this point, we’ll take anything.”
...
Patricia Legros is living in a bus-long shamble of blue tarps and shower curtains with an American flag for a door. She lives with her parents, a brother, cousins, neighbors. There is an artist, a taxi driver, a police officer, a tailor — 30 people in all. They sleep side by side on mattresses pulled from the rubble. Each night three of the men stand guard by firelight to keep cars from running them down.
Charles Mary René, 22, who has been living on a blanket in Toussaint Louverture Square here since the earthquake with her 3-year-old son and his father, Eddy Leonard, said that during the few times it rained, they just sat and got soaked. “What could we do, we have nowhere to go,” she said.
Four of the 13 Boulder City Council candidates -- businessman and endurance athlete Barry Siff, artist and former university professor Jyotsna Raj, Landmarks Board chairman and attorney Tim Plass, and care provider and activist Rob Smoke -- attended the forum at the Carriage House Community Table. Carriage House provides a case manager, access to showers, laundry and computers, and a daytime shelter in downtown Boulder.
Homeless people and their advocates expressed frustration and, at times, flashes of anger over what they see as ignorance, indifference and even hostility from other segments of Boulder society.
On the one hand, there aren't enough shelter beds to accommodate all the homeless in Boulder. On the other hand, sleeping outside is illegal, and homeless people can be ticketed, fined and sentenced to community service for camping.
One man told of being issued a ticket for "camping" because he was sitting on a bench under a tree. Another woman told of being made to wait outside in the snow for over an hour, while other bus passengers without the large backpack that marked her as homeless got to wait inside the bus station.
Case manager Heather Pauze has seen 26 deaths among her clients over the last 18 months. A homeless man was found dead near Walnut and Ninth streets on Wednesday morning. Though the cause of death has not been determined, police believe the weather may have been a factor.
The homeless people at the meeting urged the city to place a moratorium on enforcement of the no-camping rules while changes to the law are considered; provide a central place for people to store belongings, shower and change clothes; and allow the construction of cheap, single-resident housing.
Frank Murphy, president of Catholic Charities for the St. Petersburg Diocese, said the commissioners sidestepped a problem that had been ignored for years. “They just don’t think it’s important, I guess,” he said.
The plan would have used a 12-acre church lot to serve 250 people for up to 90 days in tents and small “casitas” that look like wooden sheds with windows. The diocese opened a similar camp two years ago in nearby Pinellas County, and Mr. Murphy emphasized that the plan for Tampa would have included background checks for the people placed there, along with fences and a round-the-clock police presence.
“People call it a ‘tent city,’ ” Mr. Murphy said. “It’s more a social service model where people come in and do a lot of case work, where we ask, ‘How can we help this person?’ ”
The closest residential neighborhood, East Lake, is across a divided highway and behind a row of businesses — 1,200 feet away in all. That was not nearly enough for Randall Woosely, 46, an unemployed former cab driver living with his sister in East Lake, who came to pressure the commission to vote no.
“I’ve been in jail; I know this criminal element,” Mr. Woosely said, noting that he had just served 10 months on a charge related to stolen property. He added: “I’m not opposed to helping homeless people. It’s just this is no place for that.”
County leaders agreed. Three of those who voted no — Al Higginbotham, Kevin White and Ken Hagan — said there must be a better place for the homeless. They also cited crime as a concern, despite testimony from the police in Pinellas County, who called the camp there a success. Mr. Higginbotham initially seemed to favor the idea. “In these tough financial times, someone has stepped forward and has been willing to reach out a hand of generosity,” he said. “That’s what this country has been foundedon.”
...
Linda Hinson, 61, a retiree in East Lake, said defeat of the camp plan meant “I don’t have to go out and get a gun.” She declared that there were already enough shelters.
Scott was just one of numerous homeless persons who filled the Puyallup City Council chambers on Sept. 1. For more than an hour, the group besieged officials to help them find solutions. Many said they simply needed a roof over their heads while they tackled other problems but are finding that task impossible because police officers have been destroying their tents and evicting them from public property.
Ted Brackman, co-founder of the Puyallup Homeless Coalition, said bringing the homeless to a council meeting was a necessary step in helping officials understand the problem’s scope. The coalition was formed nine years and has since grown to include Open Hearth Ministries and the Freezing Nights program, which offers temporary housing during cold weather.
“There’s little change in terms of the official policy in Puyallup towards homeless people,” Brackman said. “So we’re at a crossroads and we wanted the city council to face that.”
Puyallup doesn’t have a dedicated shelter for homeless residents, relying instead on a network of churches and non-profit groups to temporarily provide relief. The homeless say there’s a perpetual cycle: They can’t get a job without an address or phone number and they can’t get those things because they have no money.
Bev Cascio, volunteer coordinator for Open Hearth Ministries, said problems in East Pierce County are growing. Her organization provides temporary relief for the homeless at motels, but there simply aren’t any vacancies these days. The issue affects all age groups: At the end of the last school year, Cascio said, 318 children attending Puyallup schools were considered homeless.
“We are facing a crisis here in Puyallup and we know that as leaders of our community you want to know what’s happening,” Cascio told the council. “Many of the families I’ve been meeting with in recent weeks have hit a wall. They don’t want to be homeless. They are vulnerable and at risk. They are pregnant women and small children and very young parents. They are grandmothers with children.”
Peter Andrews, coordinator of the Puyallup Homeless Coalition, said the city had been donating $5,000 per year to Open Hearth Ministries. This year, in a national recession, the amount dropped to $2,500. Meanwhile, a recent report showed the city spent $860,000 in the past five years to maintain Woodbine Cemetery. Andrews wondered why volunteer groups such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts couldn’t take up such a cause.
A national law advocacy group has put a mid-sized Michigan city into the list of the meanest cities for homeless people. The study ranks the top ten cities that are unfriendly to the homeless, Kalamazoo, Michigan joins Los Angeles, Orlando, Atlanta and others.
The law center that complied the reports says some loitering laws Kalamazoo have are anti-homeless. From this story in the Kalamazoo Gazette, reporter Kathy Jessup explains.
The report, issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, put Kalamazoo in the top 10 alongside larger cities such as San Francisco, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla. Los Angeles was No. 1 in the ranking.
The groups said the rankings are based on factors that include "the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws, the general political climate toward homeless people in the city and the city's history of criminalization measures."
According to the report, Kalamazoo's designation is based largely on a 2007 controversy over a city ordinance prohibiting overnight sleeping in public parks and on rules passed in 2008 for downtown's Kalamazoo Transportation Center that addressed loitering, panhandling and illegal substances.
The report says information on Kalamazoo's ordinances and arrests was provided by Michigan People's Action, formerly known as the Kalamazoo Homeless Action Network.
KHAN has been a longtime advocate for local homeless people and an outspoken critic of Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety enforcement practices. The network participated in 2007 talks that shaped the city's park-use, panhandling and loitering ordinances.
The report says dozens of homeless people were arrested in Kalamazoo in 2007 and 2008 for alleged violations in parks and at the transportation center.
Michael Evans, who was the lead organizer of KHAN and one of the people arrested, said most of the charges were eventually dropped after the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty provided legal assistance.
Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.
A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.”
But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty — affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them.
The report, issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, put Kalamazoo in the top 10 alongside larger cities such as San Francisco, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla. Los Angeles was No. 1 in the ranking.
The groups said the rankings are based on factors that include "the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws, the general political climate toward homeless people in the city and the city's history of criminalization measures."
According to the report, Kalamazoo's designation is based largely on a 2007 controversy over a city ordinance prohibiting overnight sleeping in public parks and on rules passed in 2008 for downtown's Kalamazoo Transportation Center that addressed loitering, panhandling and illegal substances.
The report says information on Kalamazoo's ordinances and arrests was provided by Michigan People's Action, formerly known as the Kalamazoo Homeless Action Network.
KHAN has been a longtime advocate for local homeless people and an outspoken critic of Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety enforcement practices. The network participated in 2007 talks that shaped the city's park-use, panhandling and loitering ordinances.
The report says dozens of homeless people were arrested in Kalamazoo in 2007 and 2008 for alleged violations in parks and at the transportation center.
Michael Evans, who was the lead organizer of KHAN and one of the people arrested, said most of the charges were eventually dropped after the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty provided legal assistance.
Many New Yorkers view summer as a time for vacations, camp and lazy days at the beach. But city officials have been preparing for quite a different summer ritual: the swelling of the population of homeless families.
They call it the summer surge, and say that this year could be the worst yet.
Because the homeless population this spring was up more than 20 percent over last spring, possibly because of higher unemployment, officials are girding for an all-time high in the number of families in shelters at once, expecting close to 10,000. Already, the number has reached 9,420.
Other cities are noticing a similar trend. In Toledo, Ohio, one overcrowded shelter has been turning away dozens of people each night. In Charlotte, N.C., a shelter that is typically open only in winter has stayed open for the summer to meet demand, which is 20 percent higher than last summer. Across town, a Salvation Army shelter is so full, it has set up mats on the floors.
The reasons are varied but simple. Landlords who are reluctant to evict during winter are less hesitant when it is warmer. Parents like the Maldonados, who have endured poor housing conditions to spare their children agitation and humiliation at school, finally pack up and leave. And relatives who have taken in families in cramped apartments lose patience when children are suddenly underfoot all day long.
“When school’s open, families tend to stay where they are,” said Deronda Metz, the director of social services for the Salvation Army in Charlotte. “And when school’s out, they’re told it’s time to go.”
In New York, the number of homeless families applying for shelter in the summer has been 28 percent higher than the rest of the year the last three years. Their first stop is the intake center, a 24-hour, sprawling 66,000-square-foot brick building in the Bronx. They must walk through metal detectors, must submit to questioning from social workers and, after hours of waiting for their names to be called, are bused to a temporary hotel room or apartment.
Workers have begun to make room for the hundreds of extra families that are expected at the center this summer. On the second floor, all of the cubicles in one room were dismantled, replaced by rows of plastic chairs to make a waiting room for up to 114 people. Rows of boxy light gray metal lockers — each large enough to hold several suitcases — were installed. Employees at the intake center are being limited to one week of vacation during July and August.
Just a few hours after the public schools let out for summer, families began trickling into the center, their faces tight with stress. One woman walked briskly inside with her young son, who wore a bright blue backpack and held an armful of books. Another woman, who would not give her name, waited outside with her daughter, who had just finished second grade. “My sister said we couldn’t stay with her anymore,” she said, fanning herself for some relief from the humidity. “I said once she’s done with school, we’d get out.”
"They're just nice people that something bad happened to," he said.
Schneider learned the lesson as part of a mission project with more than 25 other teenagers from Andover's Hope Community Church.
They spent the week away from their homes, and away from their cell phones and other electronic devices.
They were allowed to bring only what fit into one backpack and $20 each to cover their expenses, including food.
...
The idea was to make the teens more aware of issues such as poverty and homelessness and provide them the opportunity to do local mission work, a project leader said.
Lacey Gould, event coordinator for the youth at Hope Community Church, said many of the teens didn't even know local people struggled with issues such as homelessness. Many teens, she said, had the perception of homeless as "scary" and "older men."
"I think they realized this week it really could be anybody," she said. "They met a lot of families with children. I think they just started to perceive it differently."
If Ken Flowers and Werner Beiersdoerfer have their way, the issue of homelessness in Shelby County will be eliminated one family at a time.
Already the men, trustees with the Sanctuary Trust for Shelby County, can mark two Montevallo families off their list.
Each of the families -- a father with two daughters and a single mother with five children -- lived for several months in transitional housing provided by the trust.
The Calera-based ministry works with churches to provide free housing, food and other needs to families struggling to get back on their feet. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 6.9 percent of Shelby County residents live in poverty.
...
"We can love these people back to life again," said Mark Davis, pastor of Christian Life Fellowship in Calera, which will soon sponsor families in that community.
"We can surround them with the support they need," he said. "It's a great chance to help people put their lives back together after having to endure a lot of hardship and struggle."
And that, Flowers said, is the goal. A Calera businessman who wishes to remain anonymous provided the start-up money for Sanctuary Trust in 2007. Others soon came on board, and the ministry is now privately funded by a small corps of Shelby County businessmen, Flowers said.
Once the trust was formed, Beiersdoerfer and Flowers met with pastors and staff from Shelby County social service agencies to determine what the needs were.
...
In Shelby County, the trust bought a home in Montevallo in April 2008, and the first two families to go through the program have lived there.
Two duplexes are under construction in Montevallo, and the trust has bought three more lots in the city. In addition, the trust owns five lots in The Glades of Whippoorwill subdivision in Calera, and Flowers hopes construction will begin there as soon as the Montevallo duplexes are finished.
The films are centered on homelessness and poverty in Milwaukee, but student filmmakers chose how to address the subject matter. So the films will not necessarily all be shot in the style of a straight documentary, said John Ross, one of the festival organizers and a sophomore in the College of Engineering.
"We're trying to make a connection with people through the videos," Ross said. "Once you see these stories, these problems become a lot more apparent."
There will be additional presentations between the films, including a performance by a choir from Repairers of the Breach, a shelter and homelessness outreach center, as well as poetry readings from a man who used to be homeless, Davis said.
The combination of student films and performances from members of Milwaukee's homeless community "gives people more of a complete view" of homelessness and poverty, Davis said.
The festival will also feature a display of photographs submitted as part of a contest sponsored by Hunger Clean-Up, said Megan Heinen, co-chair of the Hunger Clean-Up fundraising committee and sophomore in the College of Nursing.
The photographs will focus on issues of hunger, homelessness and other aspects of social justice.
The economy is hitting all sectors hard. When your goal is eroding a phenomenon directly linked to poverty, however, a crisis this deep delivers an extra gut punch.
"We're sort of holding our breath," says Steve Berg, with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a leader in forming the anti-homelessness plans.
"Despite the good work a lot of these communities have done with their 10-year plans, we're probably going to have a time when there's more pressure on homelessness."
Five years ago, Philip Mangano, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, got fed up with homeless numbers that had risen for decades.
"How many homeless people (there were), where they came from, how long they stayed homeless, what were the initiatives that actually worked to reduce homelessness -- we didn't know," Mangano says. "We were groping in the dark."
So he urged 100 mayors in 2003 to formulate plans to end homelessness within a decade. They would focus on the chronic homeless, defined as those with a disabling condition experiencing long-term or multiple instances of homelessness and who, activists say, suck up half of available resources.
Leaders would measure progress through benchmarks of people staying off the streets, rather than shelter beds filled. Regions began adopting a strategy placing homeless into their own apartments, then offering help, rather than vice versa.
Immediate housing calms some of the most troubled clients, according to the National Alliance, and double-digit drops in homelessness reported in Chicago, Denver, New York and Norfolk, Va., among other cities, seem to back them up.
"We have some remarkable accomplishments here," says New York Homeless Services Commissioner Robert Hess, pointing to a 25 percent reduction in street homeless since 2005.
Mangano says more than 50,000 units of housing targeting the homeless have been created over the past five years; the goal is 150,000 units by 2014.
