Homeless Blogger’s Voice Is Heard, But Still Only Silence From The “Unworthy Poor”
It’s been just about two weeks since Michael Brown (”View From the Sidewalk“) began blogging about his experiences as a newly homeless husband and father. In that brief period, Michael has brought a first-person perspective to the reality of homelessness in Greensboro, and issued stinging critiques of some available services, while expressing gratitude for the kindness of strangers in another program.
Michael’s blog has also attracted the attention of the local newspaper, which ran an article about him. Additionally, Michael’s blog is now getting hits from around the world. The German media has even picked up on his story. Closer to home, an official with the City of Greensboro’s Housing and Community Development office has asked for Michael’s help in preparing a city housing report. Lots of attention for a two-week old blog.
Searching for “homeless bloggers” on the web, I find very few. Michael has joined a a tiny subgroup of bloggers, homeless folks who are both willing to publicly acknowledge their homelessness and able to access a computer to blog about it. And Michael’s goals for his blog echo those of another homeless blogger:
“I hope my little contribution to the blogosphere will help people understand that although I and many others are in the sorry state of not having their own roof over their head, we are no less human, no less dignified, no less capable, no less deserving of respect.” — Michael Brown, “View from the Sidewalk” blog entry
“My intention is to legitimize homeless people, to show them as worthy of being treated like human beings, with compassion, acceptance, and assistance.” — Kevin Barbieux, “The Homeless Guy” blog, quoted at Salon
But still I wonder if perhaps there isn’t a bit of concern somewhere within the minds of the articulate, gifted, homeless writer/bloggers that they will be painted with the same brush as those other homeless folks — you know, the ones that hold the signs at street corners and live under bridges and sleep in library chairs and smoke crack and drink 40’s and sell their bodies to strangers. Those folks that Michael Brown calls “detritus” in his blog, and is so careful to separate himself from. Are blogs like Michael’s perhaps a type of self-defense? A way to say to the world, “Hey, I’m not that kind of homeless person.” And if so, why? Why the need to distance, to separate, to defend?
Could it be that we live in a society where the poor and the homeless earn our compassion and our notice only if they have come to be in such circumstances through no fault of their own? And of course, they must be working hard to escape their plight, and not “feeding stereotypes” and further establishing themselves as the truly “unworthy poor.”
I’m thankful that Michael Brown is able to work and to write and to advocate for himself and his family, and that he has goals and plans and the strength and desire to move quickly out of his temporarily homeless situation. God bless him. But he is no more or less worthy of our love and compassion and interest, indeed none of us are, than our homeless brothers and sisters who panhandle to feed their addictions, and sleep in the woods, and line up at the soup kitchen every day.
I’m thankful for Michael’s voice in the blogosphere. I hope to someday hear some of those other voices represented here, as well. Thankfully, I hear them in person now. I welcome you to join me in reaching out to them. To find out more, email me.
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“View From the Sidewalk” Makes The Papers
Amy Dominello’s article about blogger Michael Brown (Cyberdancer) of “View From the Sidewalk” is in today’s paper.
“The blog, called View from the Sidewalk, has become a way for Brown to vent, rant and reflect on his problems. He reveals the day-to-day travails, his guilt and anger about the situation, and his depression.”
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Repent
“…unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13:3
There is no salvation without repentence.
Repent: “to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins”
Conversation with a blogging friend last week. Wide ranging. Touched on the topic of repentance. Sparked an avalanche of thoughts. Still going. Love feels good. But there is no salvation without repentance. We can share the love of Jesus, but we haven’t shared the Gospel if we don’t preach repentance. Hmmm. A word in due season. Still going…
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Teenagers, Halo, Cookies, Urban Sophisticates & Clean Water in Africa
Grace Community Church’s middle school and high school youth groups are raising $12,000 to buy a well that will provide clean water for a village in Zambia. Their fundraiser is part of One Life Revolution, “a practical, tangible way to get involved and take a stand against the AIDS pandemic.”
Last weekend, the teens competed in a Halo tournament, which netted about $700. This morning, they held a bake sale, selling cookies and brownies and cake and other good stuff after all three services at church.
The big event is a benefit concert next Friday night, March 3rd, at 7:00 p.m., with the Urban Sophisticates, a hip-hop band based out of Greensboro, several of whose members are part of our Grace family. I love them. Not just their music, but the guys themselves. They love God, love music, love people. I’m looking forward to the concert. Come join us.
On Saturday, March 4th, the teens will do their last fundraiser, a servathon.
Also, some of our high schoolers are raising funds for their Spring Break trip to the Dominican Republic, where they do service projects and spend time with young kids living in an orphanage. This will be my older son’s third trip to the D.R. He loves doing mission work in the D.R. as much as I love doing mission work in the streets of Greensboro. I’m so excited about his heart for international missions. 
If you’d like to donate to help the youth groups buy the well, or to help the high schoolers go to the D.R., you can send a check to Grace Community Church, 643 W. Lee Street, Greensboro, NC, 27403. Please write in the memo line of your check what it’s for, or enclose a note. (Questions? Contact youth pastors John Freeman (MS) or Jimmy Renslow (HS), 379-1936.)
And please join us at the Urban Sophisticates concert on March 3rd!
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RoadRunner v. GoDaddy: An Interweb Skirmish
[Update, 03/14/2007: This post is from my old blog, on Blogger.]
This is not about homelessness, but it pertains to the banner and images on this blog, which you may or may not be seeing, depending on whether or not your ISP is RoadRunner, and whether or not the problem is fixed, so I consider it pertinent, and here goes:
I get a “page not displayed” error when I go to my web site (untangledweb.net) and my banner and other images on my blog are currently not displaying (at least for me) because they are being pulled from my web site, too.
So I called my web host, GoDaddy, who told me to call my ISP, RoadRunner, who told me to call my web host, GoDaddy, who told to call my ISP, RoadRunner… And so it goes.
Apparently, it’s a DNS issue. But both GoDaddy and RoadRunner are pointing the finger at one other, with great authority and unintelligible tech-dork-speak on both sides (but the GoDaddy guys are gaining the edge here), so my web page and my images still aren’t displaying, at least for me. But the good news is, if you aren’t a RoadRunner customer, you can still see them, because only RoadRunner customers are experiencing this problem (which may just be a clue as to which direction the finger should be pointed.)
P.S. Fun dork stuff for free. One of the GoDaddy guys I spoke to (yes, there was more than one, fun day) sent me to this web site which allows you to surf by proxy. (If anyone reading this can explain what this really is and how it works, please feel free.) I typed in my web address and blog address and was able to see both sites working fine, with images, because it bypassed the RoadRunner DNS servers. So that proved to me that the problem is not the sites themselves or my computer. Quite cool. Didn’t fix the DNS problem, but made me feel better.
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Night Watch: Birthday Party
At midnight last night, the NightWatch team went to Ricky’s house for a birthday party, complete with cake and ice cream. Ricky turns 50 today.
Ricky is one of our friends who lived under a bridge for four years, until recently. Then one of the Night Watch team members, who is also part of a ministry called MOVE (Men of Vision & Excellence), helped him and a friend move into a house. They are now working on the issues that caused them to be homeless.
Ricky was happy to see all of us, but a little overwhelmed to have so many people in his house at one time too, I think. I watched quietly while he entertained everyone, and tried to imagine what he must be feeling. Expectations, even imagined ones, can be burdensome.
Related: Pete & Ricky video.
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Night Watch: Uno Olympics
At Night Watch last night, we met a mom with three young children at the train station. They were traveling from eastern North Carolina to Alabama to see her mom. They faced a long wait for their train. So we decided to wait a while with them.
We had an Uno Olympics. I won three silvers and a bronze, but the gold eluded me. The 7-year old got three golds, so she was happy. The 5-year old and I split a pack of gummy fruit, which was surprisingly delicious. (The texture is odd, but the taste… mmmm.) He dropped one on the floor and we discussed the 5-second rule, but decided against it and threw that one away.
And of course I held the baby for a while. She just stared at me, very seriously, like “Who are you?” But she let me hold her warm, cuddly, non-wiggly little self, so that was gold for me.
Oh, and just P.S., I really enjoyed playing Uno, and I remarked that I wanted to get some Uno cards, and we were playing with Pooh and Tigger Uno cards, so I said that I wanted to get Hello Kitty Uno cards (you do about my Hello Kitty fascination, right?) and of course, everybody just insisted that there was no such thing, but GUESS WHAT?!?! 
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