Call Off the "Dogs"! The Mayor Is Listening!

Mayor Terry Bellamy (Asheville, NC) is far from the enemy in my books when it comes to compassion for homeless persons.

Meeting with her today, my southern (dis)comfort cohort Pat LaMarche and I heard sincere concern for people who are hungry and homeless in America, the topic of the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors hunger and homelessness report.

The report in question appears right before the Christmas holidays, attempting, I don't know, to prick consciences of those slipping into ultra-consumerism? It mumbles, "Pssst. People across the country are hungry and homeless." And that's about it. Ho hum. The media scrape crumbs from this content-deficient report and toss a few anemic stories our way.

Some of us seasoned advocates long for a more comprehensive picture of what cities and towns of all sizes are seeing with regards to hunger and homelessness. This doesn't need to be another report of HUD-statistics-lite, but a reflection of the desperation (or prosperity!) of America's forgotten impoverished folks. It will be a snapshot of a nation's coping with horrendous fiscal challenges and might inspire outrage and action from the immobilized masses and attention-deficit-disordered lawmakers.

With great hopes this afternoon, Pat and I parked Tillie, my RV and the traveling headquarters for our 2-week deep south homelessness awareness raising tour in Shelby where we presented a noontime and evening session on homeless families and youth. We hopped in a bright yellow tin can of a rental car, and zipped up to Asheville to meet the mayor.

Other than being exasperated by the influx of emails, she was quite gracious and willing to discuss possibilities with the USCM staff that work on this report. We explained our perspectives--Pat who runs the Safe Harbour shelter in Carlisle, PA, and me, a former shelter director from Aurora, IL, whose been on the road for the past 5 years chronicling homelessness in non-urban America. We shared concerns from other advocates who pointed out areas needing improvement.

Mayor Bellamy agreed to consider changes we submit to her before the March meeting of her committee. This upcoming edition, the 30th anniversary of the report, may look different--improved we hope--thanks to the social media campaign tool on Change.org, the powerful petition. I agreed to close it and Pat and I will solicit suggestions for the next report. Before my tired brain forgets, THANKS to all who took the time to urge a more substantial report from our nation's mayors.

A brief SDT update, Day 2 - another hugely successful day, with the Cleveland County Schools and the Abuse Prevention Council sponsoring two forums organized by the amazing McKinney-Vento staff that provide stellar service to the district's hundreds of homeless students. We met lots of compassionate people, including Shelby's Mayor Ted Alexander, who were touched by the stories in our documentaries, "My Own Four Walls," and "on the edge."

Sorry, Mr. President. I didn't get to watch your State of the Union tonight. I am guessing that homelessness wasn't mentioned. I'll tell you what. When you watch our documentary, "on the edge," (petition here) I'll watch your next major speech.

Seems to me we need to give our leaders and representatives an ultimatum. We'll pay attention to you when you pay attention to us.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan