I had a great time volunteering again this December! Get out there and make a difference http://www.homelessconnectminneapolis.org

Twice a year, I spend an entire day volunteering for Project Homeless Connect Minneapolis. It means a lot to me because we shouldn’t have people who don’t have a place to sleep at night.

I had the pleasure to help two young women out as my guests at the event.  For the first woman, I helped her pick up information about housing, getting her GED and employment.  We found some very promising programs via PPL (Project for Pride in Living) and Goodwill Easter Seals.  I enjoyed getting to know her, listened and gave her encouragement.

The second woman was younger and 9 months pregnant.  She wanted to go into electronic health records & technology.  She had just rented her first apartment.  We talked about her budget, her options for employment vs going back to school for a 2 year associate’s degree.  We got her signed up for a gmail account which will look very professional as she makes inquiries for work.

I also met Hans who is from the Netherlands and works in the medical field.  He told me about DARPA’s 10 Balloons project and how MIT had won the $40,000 challenge.  We discussed internet safety with children, I shared I would be speaking at SXSW on Sci-Fi and the Internet and we had a laugh over a line from the movie, Chicken Run.  We also discussed how legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands seemingly failed as there has not been a reduction in human trafficking according to Hans.  His son is learning the Ojibwe language at South high school in Minneapolis.  We discussed how his son (who is White) is treated differently.  I encouraged him that his son was taking the right path.

I helped people in the Internet Cafe as well this time but spent more time with the guests.

Homelessness Is A Problem We Can Solve Together

We as a society should have a safety net to keep people safe.

Minnesota Doesn’t Care About Homeless People

(But people in Minnesota do!)

Here in Minnesota, they cut funding for homeless shelters and the current shelters are filled up. This means people are being turned away every night with nowhere to safe and warm to sleep.

From TC Daily Planet:

In the meantime, shelter providers are exploring short-term solutions. Several providers attended a Hennepin County Emergency Preparedness Division meeting last week to discuss how to house people during a disaster. But providers said that the meeting focused more on one-time catastrophes. Tim Turnbull, director of the Emergency Preparedness Division, said that his agency is not equipped to address ongoing overcrowding, but could provide short-term relief if the temperature plummets and all shelters are full. “There’s going to have to be some pretty significant reasons to open this up,” he said.

Homeless advocates also worry about the long-term implications of opening new, even temporary shelters. Many point to Secure Waiting as an example. The shelter started out as a temporary solution to an increase in homelessness in the mid-90s. The homeless sat in chairs overnight in the Hennepin County Government Center and other government buildings downtown. At first, the idea was that the shelters would eventually have more room and Secure Waiting could be closed.

But the number of people sitting on chairs all night grew from 50 to 100. “It was embarrassing to the city and county to have one hundred poor people pouring out in the business community at seven AM,” Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless policy advocate Patrick Wood said.

Even Mayor RT Rybeck assumed that EVERYONE panhandling was homeless

Last week the City Council and I approved a new city law to reduce aggressive panhandling in Minneapolis. Panhandling erodes our civic pride and is an ineffective, arbitrary way to help a homeless person that does nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness. People in Minneapolis have a right to walk down our streets and not be intimidated or harassed. Please do not give money to panhandlers and call 911 for police if you see or experience aggressive panhandling in Minneapolis. Instead of giving spare change to panhandlers, give real change by donating to organizations working to end homelessness. For more information about where aggressive panhandling is banned, visit the City panhandling web page. To learn more about Minneapolis’ plan to end homelessness, visit the City homelessness web page.

How is this money being spent?

Hennepin County and the city of Minneapolis received a $6.5 million stimulus package this year for homelessness prevention to be used over the course of three years.

Don’t All Homeless People Ask For Money?

Actually, many people out there “begging” aren’t homeless. For some, it’s a way to get fast and easy money, up to $100 a day. Many people who don’t have permanent housing are struggling to make change. This was readily apparent at the event.

From City Journal:

People’s generosity encourages the begging. About four out of ten Denver residents gave to panhandlers, city officials determined several years ago, anteing up an estimated $4.6 million a year. Anecdotal surveys by journalists and police, and even testimony by panhandlers themselves, suggest that begging can yield anywhere from $20 to $100 a day—though police in Coos Bay, Oregon, found that local panhandlers were taking in as much as $300 a day in a Wal-Mart parking lot. “A panhandler could make thirty to forty thousand dollars a year, tax-free money,” Baker says. In Memphis, a local FOX News reporter, Jason Carter, donned old clothes and hit the streets earlier this year, earning about $10 an hour. “Just the quasi-appearance of being homeless filled my cup,” Carter observed. That all the money is beyond the tax man’s clutches adds to the allure of professional panhandling.

If it seems unlikely that a homeless person would surf the Web for advice on how to panhandle, that’s exactly the point: many aren’t homeless and are lying about their circumstances. A reporter for KUTV in Salt Lake City followed and filmed panhandlers for several months, documenting their scams. One twentysomething woman wielded a sign informing people that she was homeless and needed a bus ticket back to Seattle. The reporter followed her one day, however, and discovered that she lived in a nearby suburb. Confronted by the reporter, the woman explained away her deception: “I don’t say anything to anybody. I hold this sign. I don’t make anybody give me money.” Her story isn’t unique: homeless advocate Pamela Atkinson told KUTV that some 70 percent of panhandlers in Salt Lake City aren’t describing their situations accurately.