“Have you heard…”: Tales from the Boys & Girls Club Gala
“Have you heard our story?” That was the title on the program for tonight’s Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club Gala, where I volunteered at a very busy (but fun!) registration table.
The Boys and Girls Clubs serve 1321 kids in Greensboro, mostly from poor families. The gala is a major fundraiser for the program and it included both a silent and live auction. A beautiful mosaic tile-topped table made by the Boys & Girls Club kids went for $1200. A flag signed by Joey Cheek brought $2000. My favorite? Dinner for 12 at the O’Henry, which went for $2500, the highest bid during the live part of the auction. [Oh, if only I could have afforded it, Night Watch team, we would have eaten in style… *grin*…]
LOL Moment: The Major was introducing the local dignitaries (the Mayor, Councilman Tom Phillips, etc.), and he got around to GCS Superintendent Terry Grier. “Is Terry Grier here?,” he asked, looking around the room. And then someone called out, really loudly, “HE’S IN CHARLOTTE!” Much laughter ensued, (good-natured, of course!) but Dr. G had left the building, so he missed it.
The Ray Warren Drum Line performed and it was amazing!! I couldn’t stay still - they were so good! The kids ranged in age from 6-12 and they’ve won awards for their performance. I could see why! And a teen who’s been in Boys & Girls Club since she was eight years old spoke about the difference it’s made in her personality and her life. She wants to be a lawyer someday, and judging by how a good speaker she already is, I’d say she has a good future ahead of her. 
The program had a (long) list of the 2006 sponsors of the Boys & Girls Club, and I got to put faces with familiar names while I worked the registration table. The gala was sponsored by RF Micro Devices. (Which has changed its named to simply “RFMD,” but everybody I know has always just called it “RF” anyway.)
I’m hoping to get a photo to post here, and also I’ll post the total raised when I find out. If you missed the gala but would like to donate, send your tax-deductible contribution to: The Salvation Army Boys & Girls Clubs of Greensboro, 1311 South Eugene St., Greensboro, NC, 27406. (Call 336-273-5572 with questions.)
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“Who Will Tell Us The Truth?”: Panel Discussion, April 5th
From Jordan, via email:
“Who will tell us the truth? The fate of journalism in an age of moral confusion and indifference.”Please join panelists Ogi Overman, Roch Smith Jr. and Joya Wesley, along with moderator Jordan Green at St. Mary’s House on April 5 for a discussion about the future of the press in an era of continuing credibility scandals, declining circulation and waning democratic practices.
This panel discussion is part of the Wednesday night fellowship at St. Mary’s House, UNCG’s Episcopal campus/community center. It event will take place from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 5 at St. Mary’s House, 930 Walker Ave. in Greensboro. For more information, call 336.334.5219.
Who’s speaking?
• Ogi Overman writes a weekly column for YES! Weekly and is the former publisher of the Greater Greensboro Observer.
• Roch Smith Jr. is the site administrator for Greensboro101.com.
• Joya Wesley is the communications director for the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a veteran freelance reporter.
• Jordan Green is news editor at YES! Weekly.
We’ll talk about the present crisis facing journalism and democracy, including the credibility scandals that beset the profession beginning with the revelation that a New York Times reporter fabricated stories, and the financial difficulties of the business, in which the latest lurch has been the sale of Knight-Ridder newspapers at the behest of shareholders dissatisfied with the company’s stagnant profits. We’ll talk about some new ideas for maintaining the watchdog function of journalism, and open the floor to questions and comments.
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Stealing from the Poor… (and from the taxpayers, too!)
When an employee chose to set up a scam to steal money from Greensboro Housing Authority, she also stole money from the poor — the intended recipients of the Section 8 voucher money she diverted to herself and her friends. Some of the folks who use those rental vouchers used to be homeless. Others might be homeless right now without the vouchers. Why would anyone steal money from them? I don’t get it.
Oh, but wait, there’s more. If you’re a taxpayer, she also stole from you. You see, Section 8 is a HUD program, funded by federal taxpayer dollars. So if you pay federal taxes, you got robbed, too.
Stealing is bad enough. But stealing from poor people? It just really makes me sad. Not to mention the fact that it just adds to the distrust folks have around here of non-profit housing groups. (I won’t go into the history of why that is, but you know… Project Homestead… St. James… etc..)
“He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself … will only come to poverty.” Proverbs 22:16
Update: By the way, I just realized that this title - “Stealing from the Poor… (and from the taxpayers, too!)” - could be interpreted as me saying that the poor and the taxpayers are two mutually exclusive groups, and no, I don’t think that or mean it that way. I meant both groups, and the groups have members in common. If anybody has a better title, bring it on. Thanks! 
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Homeless Lottery Player: “I Ain’t Poor”
WFMY did a story on homeless folks staying at the Greensboro Urban Ministry Weaver House shelter who are hoping to strike it rich playing the new North Carolina Lottery. Shelter clients interviewed for the segment plan to spend as much as $40 per week on lottery tickets. One homeless lottery hopeful figures that he can afford that much because “I ain’t poor.”
GUM Executive Director Mike Aiken discussed the government’s responsibility in setting policy that affects the poor, and the “blame the victim” mentality. The government’s role in encouraging homeless folks to play the lottery is made clear when one shelter client talks about seeing the Board of Education Chairman on TV, and notes that “he’s going to be the first one that draws.”
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Gladwell: “Million Dollar Murray” & The Power-Law Theory of Homelessness
The HPCGC Chair just emailed me a link to “Million Dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage,” by Malcolm Gladwell (published in the March 2006 issue of the New Yorker.) Our local Ten Year Plan Task Force is reading it.
This is one of the best and most exhaustive articles I’ve read about the problem of homelessness in our society, the specific issue of chronic homelessness, and the current efforts to end homelessness through the use of permanent supportive housing. I urge you to read it. It is educating, thought-provoking and challenging.
Some quotes:
The costs of chronic homelessness to a community:
“…if you totted up all his hospital bills for the ten years that he had been on the streets—as well as substance-abuse-treatment costs, doctors’ fees, and other expenses—Murray Barr probably ran up a medical bill as large as anyone in the state of Nevada. ‘It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray,’ O’Bryan said.”
The distribution of homelessness:
“Homelessness doesn’t have a normal distribution, it turned out. It has a power-law distribution. ‘We found that eighty per cent of the homeless were in and out really quickly,’ [Culhane] said.”
Chronic homelessness:
“It was the last ten per cent—the group at the farthest edge of the curve—that interested Culhane the most. They were the chronically homeless, who lived in the shelters, sometimes for years at a time. They were older. Many were mentally ill or physically disabled, and when we think about homelessness as a social problem—the people sleeping on the sidewalk, aggressively panhandling, lying drunk in doorways, huddled on subway grates and under bridges—it’s this group that we have in mind.”
The fruitlessness of efforts that simply “manage” homelessness:
“There is no end to the issues. We do this huge drill. We run up big lab fees, and the nurses want to quit, because they see the same guys come in over and over, and all we’re doing is making them capable of walking down the block.”
We have the solution and we’re already spending the money:
“It’s a matter of a few hard cases, and that’s good news, because when a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about solving it. The bad news is that those few hard cases are hard. They are falling-down drunks with liver disease and complex infections and mental illness. They need time and attention and lots of money. But enormous sums of money are already being spent on the chronically homeless, and Culhane saw that the kind of money it would take to solve the homeless problem could well be less than the kind of money it took to ignore it.”
Philip Mangano:
“The leading exponent for the power-law theory of homelessness is Philip Mangano, who, since he was appointed by President Bush in 2002, has been the executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a group that oversees the programs of twenty federal agencies… [Mangano argues that you] build a shelter and a soup kitchen if you think that homelessness is a problem with a broad and unmanageable middle. But if it’s a problem at the fringe it can be solved.”
Mr. Mangano visited Greensboro in February, for our Ten Year Plan Task Force Kickoff. See the photos here.
The old rules don’t apply:
“The current philosophy of welfare holds that government assistance should be temporary and conditional, to avoid creating dependency. But someone who blows .49 on a Breathalyzer and has cirrhosis of the liver at the age of twenty-seven doesn’t respond to incentives and sanctions in the usual way.”
Tough choices:
“There isn’t enough money to go around, and to try to help everyone a little bit—to observe the principle of universality—isn’t as cost-effective as helping a few people a lot… Power-law problems leave us with an unpleasant choice. We can be true to our principles or we can fix the problem. We cannot do both.”
Something for everyone to reject:
“Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis.”
Both the “right” in me and the “left” in me reject the proposed “power-law” solution to homelessness for the very reasons he states, but if I disconnect my head from my heart for a minute, I admit that it sounds good on paper.(However, I can’t live long with my head and heart detached, so….)
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A “Big City” View on the Homeless
This afternoon I drove my younger brother around downtown. He’s visiting from the big city (Seattle) and I wanted to show him all the changes we have going on. We talked about homelessness (of course), and I found out that our experiences and perspectives differ.
I told him about the homeless folks I’ve met and become friends with while doing street outreach in downtown Greensboro. And then he told me about the homeless guys in downtown Seattle who urinate on his car after he walks away if he doesn’t give them a dollar.
[”Wait… They what?!?!?”]
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Students Discover Challenges of Local Homeless Assistance Process
Two dozen Guilford College students participated in a homelessness simulation yesterday. Cedric Essah was one of them.
“Essah ended up going four different places, all of them several times.”
“He got tired of running around, filling out sheet after sheet of paperwork and waiting in line. ”
“‘It’s a hassle,” Essah said. “I can see why people would get frustrated easily and want to give up.’”
The event coordinator described the helping process as “murky,” and Essah expressed his hope that the students’ experience would help others find ways to make the process easier.
The students’ experience underscores echoes that of the homeless folks we serve. I think that most of us realize that the system is difficult to navigate. The “helpers” are in different locations and everyone has their own eligibility criteria and program rules.
One new initiative that we have discussed within HPCGC, and that a lot of us are excited about, is the “single portal of entry” or “centralized intake.” This would be one location where anyone seeking assistance for homelessness and/or poverty would come to apply for services. Standardizing intake would make referrals work better for the client and the agencies.
Some of us have also talked about combining a single portal with a day center, and having medical and psychiatric professionals, life skills trainers, and other service providers come to the center to work directly with clients. We have many ideas. What’s missing? Yeah, you know. $$$. [Heavy sigh.]
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