NEWSBYSLUMJACK HOMELESS

I recently enjoyed a month on the beaches of Oahu, Hawaii — and the use of a house a block away. Not everyone, even in the "paradise" that is Hawaii, is so fortunate when it comes to the housing part. In fact, there has been a growing "homeless problem" in a number of locations on several of the islands that make up the state.

If I'd waited, I may have also enjoyed a free, state-provided flight back to the mainland, as well. And this is where those without housing might soon have that "benefit." But is that a benefit, and for whom, really?

Reports are circulating about Hawaii, and the island of Oahu in particular (where the city of Honolulu and its major airport is located), considering a program to offer homeless people a one-time, one-way airfare voucher to Get Out of Dodge ... er, "Palekaiko" ("Paradise," in the Hawaiian language).

This isn't a new idea, of course. For instance, cities such as San Francisco and its "Homeward Bound" program have long had similar options in place, providing one-time, one-way bus tickets to homeless or other indigent persons. This may be considered importantly helpful for those that are stuck and have family or friends elsewhere ready to take them in, but lacking the means to travel. Or it could be seen as a more callous way to simply rid the area of persons whose problems and needs cannot or will not be fundamentally solved there, by merely sending them elsewhere.

Call me lucky. I got in on a "beta testing" program with a telecommunications company called Grand Central several years ago. Since then, Google acquired the services, renamed it Google Voice, and my participation continued — eventually becoming invaluable to me at a time when I unexpectedly needed it most.

It's very cool — access to and control of your own "lifetime" phone number and incoming calls via the internet and a website. There are too many useful and fun options to list here (check the website), and it's all free. Of course, once the testing phases are complete, this very well might proceed to another of Google's ever-growing roster of paid services.

But for now, the program has allowed participants a number of invitations which can be personally extended to other people to also obtain the same kind of service. I've been glad to pass these on to others I know who can benefit the most.

When homeless, phones and calls can become a more important and problematic issue than you previously thought possible. Like anyone else, many matters vital to homeless individuals rely upon phone calls and messages. Homelessness too often prevents one from being able to consistently afford having a phone or keeping the service paid and continuously active. Even after phones and services are paid for, theft isn't uncommon. Then there's the real possibility of mysteriously losing the thing while constantly moving around. Thankfully, some progress is being made to extend phone service to more and more homeless persons.

Santa Cruz, California, has joined the growing number of cities that are turning to "parking meters" installed on city streets for the purpose of collecting donations to help homeless people. Funds raised will supposedly go toward things like bus tickets and IDs. Another purpose is to rid the streets of panhandlers. Personally, I can only wonder how many people are panhandling to buy bus tickets (to leave town?) or to pay fees for identification.

The meters are expected to collect $1,700 per year, so it's a good thing that the refurbishing and installation of these vintage meters will be paid for by private donations. Chances are that the cost of putting them in will be more than they earn the first year.

A county social worker will then be tasked with distributing the donations. Since the money is reserved for particular applications, this means it will go out in the form of vouchers or other non-cash disbursement. Fortunately, the bus tickets can then be used for people to go to and from the various county offices to get these bus tickets, their IDs, etc. And that will help keep them off the streets panhandling for ... well, anything else.

I'd like to see the real budget for maintaining the devices, collecting and managing the funds and paying for the workers and program operation. I'm no expert, but I can't help suspecting that the true expenses easily amount to many multiples of what those meters will actually bring in — or eventually deliver to any homeless people. In effect, this could be a fairly expensive and elaborate way to invest in mainly discouraging panhandlers that truly costs the public a lot more than just handing cash directly to those who need it.

Larry Moore has attained minor celebrity status in San Francisco, and well beyond, since he became a local media favorite. After six years homeless, and panhandling to buy booze, he'd finally had enough. He decided to begin a street business in a bustling downtown area. He sobered up, spruced up and began wearing ties with loud suits.

His first idea, reselling snacks and sodas, was abandoned when a friend showed him how to put together a shoe shine. Larry began pushing his cart up to an affluent area six days a week after spending his nights under a bridge. He became popular with customers and nearby businesses alike.

But it was when a local columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, C. W. Nevius, ran a story about him in March 2009 that things really started happening for Larry. By early summer, business was booming. He got further media attention — when the city slapped him with hundreds of dollars in vendor permit fees, which amounted to all he had saved just before he could afford to rent a room.

Celebrity has its benefits and, in this case, Larry enjoyed some sizable personal donations that enabled him to make ends meet and get off the streets. Some influential supporters helped smooth over bureaucratic obstacles and get him extra-low rent in a hotel. Things were definitely looking up and it all made for a heartwarming story. A short time later, Larry was comfortably inside, with an ever-growing wardrobe, proud of his famed service business.

Happy ending, right? Not quite. Real life isn't always so tidy.

Last weekend, I attended the 2010 Poverty and Homelessness Symposium held on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It's an annual event at a major institution and a collaboration with several key agencies, participated in and attended by students, faculty, alumni, professionals and the public. It's an ambitious topic with a very challenging scope, and with so many invested parties.

Yet, how much "news" could there be? Poverty and homelessness are not at all new nor are the agencies, programs and various efforts established to reduce these. In fact, so much is already known, well-established and with such a long history that just attempting to present and portray it all in the mere four hour event would be a daunting enough task without also trying to progress to any significant improvements.

Instead, unfortunately, the consensus turned out to be more like: it's all still going on and, if anything, things are getting seriously worse.

In years past, this very symposium had been a national event, with notable participants and attendees from around the country and even internationally. Like everything else, it has been "downsized" to a more local event with just three speakers and a small panel, of which I was a member.

As noted human rights attorney/activist and artist Osha Neumann remarked, there wasn't a single homeless person included as a speaker. This under-representation of poor and homeless in favor of others speaking about them is an ongoing concern. He also pointed out that some homeless persons he knew had come and left already. More did through the event, too.

Neumann reiterated a message he's been delivering for some time, including his warnings almost three years ago about worsening conditions for homeless in Berkeley, in the form of "draconian" laws. Such laws did pass and helped earn Berkeley the rating of 10th meanest city to the homeless by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

On Easter Sunday, homeless activists and supporters rallied at noon in the Mission district of San Francisco. The group, "Homes Not Jails" (tagline: "Coming soon to a vacant building near you!"), marched and chanted down Mission Street accompanied by the spirited music of the Brass Liberation Orchestra. All continued on to the 500 block of San Jose Street, where they marched right into a vacant home — whose 80-something former resident, who had lived there since 1965, had been evicted and became homeless.

The occupying protesters declared the two-bedroom duplex to be "public property" in a symbolic act to decry housing wasting away while people die on the streets for lack of shelter and to protest instances when homes are forcibly taken from people living there, only to remain unoccupied.

A celebration ensued, with banners hung on the building, more music and food provided by East Bay Food Not Bombs. The initially heavy police presence remained in the background but dwindled, as the peaceful protesters settled in for the night while the legal property owner could not be contacted — yet. The following day, owner Ara Tehlirian filed a complaint and San Francisco police moved in, removing and arresting four of the occupiers.

A California state law known as the Ellis Act allows property owners to evict tenants in order to remove buildings from the rental market. In this case, former tenant Jose Morales had fought eviction for 14 years, resisting a revolving door of landlords, before finally being ousted by an owner who claimed he was going to convert the building to condos ... which never happened. The building has sat empty for over two years, while the octogenarian has become homeless. Owner Tehlirian denies that the building sits unused, saying it serves his unspecified "personal uses" — if not to actually live there. He resides in the next town, Daly City.

Why would a beautiful young woman with a full-time academic workload spend hours and hours of her limited free-time to help homeless people in her town? Meet Tiffany, a volunteer who has touched my life.

Like many people, Tiffany was looking for her passion. A rewarding purpose to which she could devote herself. Her current majors -- she's in her third year of studying French and literature at the University of California -- weren't quite hitting the target. Her interest in languages even had her taking Swahili at one point. But then, by chance, she had an opportunity to travel to and study in Kenya.

Don't see the connection between all this and working with homeless people in California yet? In Africa, Tiffany was exposed to an array of both government programs and non-governmental organizations. One NGO that captured her attention, and then eager involvement, was a rescue home for street kids. Living and working there, with about 40 formerly homeless and abandoned kids, she found her passion. The founder and manager of that program, an example of direct, personal commitment and practical action, inspired her, too.

Returning home, Tiffany found her way to a local program called "The Suitcase Clinic," a volunteer operation in my area that provides a variety of services and resources to homeless and other "underserved" persons. These include medical and optical care, legal and housing assistance, even haircuts, laundry and foot washing. Volunteers spend hours with clients and in organizational and development meetings. It's a lot of work, all unpaid.

Last night was the first night that a local emergency shelter was closed this season. Limited funds ran out, so even though it was just as cold and rainy as the night before, the doors stayed shut.

I ran across a friend who was biding time on the sidewalk under a business' awning until it was late enough to attempt to sleep on nearby church property. He was hoping to avoid getting cited for trespassing, which has been a mounting risk here. I knew that he'd recently been housed by a local program and so I asked what changed.

He told me that he'd been granted a 30-day stay in one of the transitional houses here, because he's had some continuing serious health problems — headaches, chest pain, blood in urine. Not too long ago, he'd had some surgery, too. He's been seeking help through various sources, such as a free clinic, a suitcase clinic held weekly for homeless people and some county health and human services options.

But due to all these time-consuming appointments, my friend has been unable to attend various "classes" that the transitional house program requires, like using computers there to look for work at the scheduled times. So they curtailed his stay there and sent him back out onto the cold, rainy streets — sick and in worse shape than ever. This also now prevents his "qualifying" for another stay at that program, were he to get necessary treatment and then be able to adhere to the house rules.

I've known others that have become so ill that they can't even muster the effort to go to all the appointments necessary to even try to get "help." Typically, one must undertake a considerable amount of local travel, any number of times, then spend hours at a time waiting and filling out forms that ask for the same information over and over. All this might eventually result in getting some actual medical treatment. Maybe. Sometimes. Eventually. If you're well enough to go through all that.

A new study to be published later this year, conducted by Barbara Schneider and Chaseten Remillard of the University of Calgary, will report that the media tends to present homeless people in ways that promote their "social isolation."

Over the course of one year, Schneider and Remillard monitored Canada's major newspapers and concluded that homeless people were significantly underrepresented. In the 270 articles they examined, homeless people were quoted just 15.3 percent of the time while "experts" made up 73.6 percent of attributions.

Some other contributing factors:

• Portraying homeless people as "different" and socially removed.
• Presenting photos in which homeless subjects are isolated (the photo here is an example).
• Relying on quotes from homeless people only to describe their situations, not to discuss causes or solutions.

"Media is a shared site of public debate," Schneider told the student newspaper. "If you don't have access to that, then you don't really have a full citizenship."

I was amazed last year when I heard claims from major cities around the country that homelessness was decreasing dramatically. Los Angeles officials, for instance, touted an almost 40 percent decrease in homelessness. Here in Berkeley, the mayor proudly announced a close to 50 percent reduction in the numbers of chronic homeless.

Yet I noticed that these remarkable announcements seemed to be missing convincing evidence. Stories typically would include only a couple of heartwarming individual "success stories" as examples. But all other indicators and simple direct observation sure indicated the opposite to me.

Now the federal government has confirmed these suspicions in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's "Homelessness Pulse Project," which shows that of course homelessness has been increasing, and at significant rates.