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The headline caught me by surprise: “Substance abuse treatment center penalized after patient’s death.”

Bridgeway; photo credit: chosenfast.com

“The Guilford Center has been issued two administrative penalties for violating state statutes regarding medication requirements and clinical and nursing competence following the death of a patient in January, a county agency said today…”

First of all: Someone died at Bridgeway in January? Was that in the news? (Was it someone I knew?) How did I miss that? I just Googled. Maybe I didn’t miss it. I can’t find news reports from January.

Read more on Death at treatment center impacts recovery options for county’s homeless residents…

Kevin Barbieux explains this so much better than I ever have:

Ok, so what’s the difference between a Panhandler and a Beggar? Well, to my mind there is a difference. The panhandler is stationary, his technique involves picking one place to sit or stand while waiting for you to pass by. The beggar is on the move, his technique involves finding one in the area most likely to buy his pitch. The panhandler works on the odds that a certain percentage of the entire population will walk by him, and throw something into his pan/hat/cup/palm. The beggar is more aggressive, and more cunning; he is the tiger on the prowl, looking for the weak and the young.

Read more on The Homeless Guy on the difference between panhandlers and beggars…

Crack Cocaine (image source: DEA)

Addiction develops much more rapidly with cocaine than alcohol, often within a few weeks or months, and especially when smoked as freebase (crack). Thus, the dynamics of cocaine addiction are different from those of alcoholism, including its impact on the individual and the family. Cocaine addiction can be likened to a rapid-onset trauma that stuns its victims, compared with alcoholism, which progressively and insidiously debilitates the drinker over a much longer period. The cocaine-affected family is less likely to show the deeply ingrained systemic aberrations and codependent relationships so commonly seen in alcoholic families.

~ from “Outpatient Treatment of Cocaine and Crack Addiction: A Clinical Perspective,” by Arnold M. Washton and Nannatte Stone-Washton (PDF)

Read more on Bottle vs. rock = Slide vs. slam…

Learning the science behind addiction frees us from judging, condemning and shaming the alcoholics and addicts in our lives.

Trusting the unchanging Word of God, living daily by the power of His Holy Spirit and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ comforts us, strengthens us and allows us to detach with love and live in peace even in the midst of heartbreak and chaos in our lives.

Read more on Science + Faith: Learning to live in peace in the midst of addiction…

I wrote about the guys on the block (and more) for the News & Record: “When there’s nowhere to go,” by Michele Forrest; published Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009.  It’s online here, and reposted below:

On the block. Image credit: Michele Forrest / ChosenFast.com

My ministry partner, Audrie Keen, and I provide a street outreach to the homeless in Greensboro, and we’ve made a lot of friends along the way. We eat together, go to church together and have cookouts. Sometimes our homeless friends stay with us. We visit formerly homeless friends in their homes.

When we say “homeless friends,” we really mean friends.

Two Friday mornings ago, we visited “The Block” at Lee and South Eugene streets. It had been 11 days since my last visit, when we’d talked about the artistic bench installed, then removed, from along the new stretch of the Downtown Greenway in that area. Neighbors said the bench attracted drug addicts and prostitutes.

The guys on The Block dismissed that notion. One said: “The problem is not as serious as they say it is on the news. And the bench has nothing to do with it.”

Read more on When there’s nowhere to go…

Good editorial in today’s News & Record: “Clearing out The Block”:

Greensboro police last week stepped up loitering enforcement and effectively cleared the place known as “The Block.” Just like that.

Read more on N&R Editorial: Clearing out The Block…

The News & Record and WFMY report that the owner of the University Mart in Greensboro has been charged with food stamp fraud. He’s accused of making purchases at local grocery stores with food stamps that weren’t assigned to him. The University Mart is on Warren Street, near the intersection with Spring Garden.

Read more on Finally! A Greensboro store owner gets charged with food stamp fraud…

Did you read News & Record editorial page editor Allen Johnson’s Sunday, October 4, 2009 column? Read it online: My conflicted views about panhandlers.

Allen writes in response to the heavily restrictive changes to the city’s panhandling ordinance, which have made it illegal to panhandle almost everywhere downtown, and have limited panhandling throughout the city. Allen talks about why he has mixed feelings about panhandlers.

Read more on Allen Johnson: Conflicted about panhandlers…

Be sure to read Lorraine Ahearn’s News & Record article, “Benches highlight a bigger problem”, which begins like this:

“The location of artistic benches, which were removed from the Downtown Greenway on Friday after neighbors complained, looked good on paper but ignored some basic urban topography. Just a stone’s throw from where the benches were removed, amid complaints that they drew drunken and lewd behavior, sits ‘The Block.’ At the southwest corner of Eugene and Lee streets, at the entrance to HealthServe clinic and Greensboro Urban Ministry’s night shelter, this stretch of sidewalk has been a magnet for loitering, drugs and prostitution for 20 years….”

The benches were never the problem, so removing them won’t solve it. The problem on the block is primarily addiction. People drink there, and buy and smoke pot and crack. And where you find crack, you find dealers and prostitutes.

Read more on Bilbro benches gone, next target: homeless on the block?…

The Greensboro City Council has adopted changes in the City ordinance governing begging and panhandling. Sec. 20-69 will be amended as follows:

Sec. 20-69: Place
Any person who begs or solicits alms for his or her personal gain when the person is in any of the places listed below is guilty of a misdemeanor:
(1) At any bus or train stop;
(2) In any public transportation vehicle, facility, transit stop or taxi stand;
(3) In any vehicle on the street; or
(4) On private property, unless the person has written permission from the owner of the property to beg or solicit alms on the property; or
(5) On any school property during the student arrival times or during the student departure times.
(6) On any sidewalk adjacent to a motion picture theater, outdoor theater or palladium, any valid licensed vendor location, or where a line of patrons has formed.
(7) Within 20 feet of the entrance to any financial institution or automated teller machine, regardless of whether or not such automated teller machine is located at or near a financial institution. Financial institution as used in this section means any bank, trust company, savings and loan association, credit union, check-cashing business, any other entity principally engaged in the business of lending or receiving or soliciting money on deposit; or
(8) Within 20 feet of the entrance to any commercial establishment or private residence, or
(9) In any parking, deck, garage or surface parking lot and not within 20 feet of the entrance and exits of these areas and not within 20 feet of any parking meter or parking kiosk, or
(10) While under the influence of alcohol or other non-prescribed drugs or illegal substance, or
(11) Within 20 feet of the visible barricade of any outdoor café whether such café is on the public sidewalk or on private property.

The amended ordinance became effective upon adoption.

Read more on What the amendment to the panhandling ordinance says…

Image credit: Nelson Kepley, N&R

UPDATE:  The amendments to the panhandling ordinance passed unanimously.

Tonight, the Greensboro City Council considers significant revisions to the ordinance governing public soliciting, begging and panhandling.  The proposed changes would result in a de facto ban on panhandling in the downtown area, and would strictly limit panhandling throughout the rest of the city.

Read more on N&R: Proposal would just about ban panhandling…

From a formerly homeless friend’s Facebook:

Was walking thru the center city park…seems like it has turned into an alcoholic playground. Everywhere i turned there were cups being filled with brown bag specials….i would love to sit and toast in the park…but then again its scorching heat…..pray with me for our homeless friends….i saw a lady at the library with a gash in her head..sitting in the sun…prayer breaks the devils spirit and saves lives.

This is sad. Physical and/or sexual violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women and children, and homeless women are more likely than housed women to be victims of violence. I will be praying for the lady at the library.

Read more on Center City brown bagging and homeless violence…