ChosenFast.com

I’ve been busy doing instead of writing lately, so here’s a little update on local homeless news.

Last night, I attended the third of four planned registration dinner meetings at HealthServe for homeless people without income or health benefits. These have been going really well and a number of those who have attended and registered have already seen a doctor and received medications. Because they are homeless and without income, and they attended a registration dinner, they qualified to have their appointment and prescription fees waived. Awesome. A big “thank you!” to the HealthServe staff and to Moses Cone for making this happen.

Read more on Homeless News Update, 04/25/08…

The “Bum Bot” chases away homeless people and drug dealers from a downtown Atlanta neighborhood.

[video link]

Some neighbors appreciate Rufus Terrill’s robotic security guard. The bar owner and day care center board member built the robot to help him safely patrol the neighborhood. But homeless advocates are not amused.

Read more on ‘Bum Bot’ chases away the homeless…

MobLogic.tv interviews homeless people at The Bowery Mission in New York to get their thoughts on Google’s plan to give phone numbers and voicemail to the homeless:

$53.11 will buy one pair of pants, two dresses, eight tops and a rockin’ pair of boots at Goodwill. And that’s more than enough to make me smile.

Wear clothes with history. Pay less. Do more.

Read more on You can’t buy happiness, but……

Passed along by Wes Ward of Westover Church:

“I simply argue that the Cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles; but on a cross between two thieves; on the towns’ garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek… at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. So, that is where church-men ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.”

Read more on Crucified where cynics talk smut and thieves curse — and where the church ought to be…

The Urban Sophisticates (web site, MySpace) are playing at the Heritage Festival this weekend, celebrating Greensboro’s Bicentennial. The band takes the stage at Hamburger Square on Saturday, April 12th, around 6:00 p.m. There’s lots more happening during the festival weekend. Check it out.

Read more on Urban Sophisticates playing at Bicentennial Festival April 12th…

Some folks in Winston have come up with an innovative way to keep people from lying down on their park benches.

I don’t know what to say, so I won’t.

HT: Em

Read more on Sit, don’t lie…

UPDATE, 10/14/2008: THIS CONFERENCE HAS BEEN CANCELED. MORE INFO HERE.

I don’t have details yet, but the date for North Carolina’s 2008 conference on homelessness in Raleigh is November 17-18. Mark your calendars!

Read more on 2008 NC Homeless Conference…

image credit: BackOnMyFeet.org

Check this out:

Back On My Feet: Moving the homeless forward one step at a time

Mission Statement: Back on My Feet is a non-profit organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of Philadelphia’s homeless population by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem.

Read more on Back on my feet: Moving the homeless forward…

Jordan Green writes about yesterday’s homeless day center meeting, led by City Council member Dianne Bellamy-Small, with homeless service providers, pastors, advocates and others.

Here’s a quote from Bellamy-Small City Council member Goldie Wells:

Read more on TDBS and Wells meet with pastors, providers and advocates about a homeless day center…

Fox8 reports that a homeless man was attacked and robbed early this morning while looking for a place to sleep in the Glenwood neighborhood in Greensboro. The man told police that two men approached him, attacked him with a chain and stole his backpack.

Read more on Homeless man attacked in Glenwood…

1. somewhere to be
2. something to do
3. somebody who cares
4. to find or replace what was lost