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Via email, from Tim Clontz, Executive Vice President, Health Services, Moses Cone Health System. Posted with permission:

Tim Clontz, VP, Moses Cone (image source: mosescone.com)

Moses Cone Health System and High Point Regional Health System want to continue providing care to underserved adults and children in Guilford County and have been negotiating a contract to do so for two years.

Read more on Moses Cone VP Tim Clontz on Guilford County health care cut…

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…

My ministry partner took this photo at the entrance to the Greenway, near the block. Image credit: Audrie Keen

Two days ago, I wrote about “the block” at Lee and Eugene Streets being empty. The block is a long-time gathering spot where folks, many of them homeless, are known to loiter and drink. A friend, who catches a bus just down the sidewalk, had contacted me to tell me that police had cleared everybody out.

Read more on Did it take a Greenway to clear the block?…

"The block" at Lee & Eugene Streest; image credit: News & Record

A friend contacted me yesterday to tell me that police were no longer allowing people to stand on “the block,” a well-known and long-time gathering spot at the corner of Lee and Eugene Streets near the homeless shelter, soup kitchen and health clinic.  Traditionally, most of the people who stood out on the corner were homeless, and many of them spent their time on the block drinking. Today, I received reports from a number of sources with information about what may have led to the clearing of the block.

Read more on Alston meets with residents; Bellamy clears block; day center gets $275K…

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?…

From greensboropeerpressure”

“The people who rule what happens in Downtown Greensboro have removed the little greenway through the parking lot on South Elm and McGee streets downtown because they claim that nobody used it. People used to use it to eat bag lunches and watch passers-by and enjoy the breeze and the flowers. Neighbors often sat on the benches and had friendly conversations and/or heated discussions.

Read more on Good-bye to Panhandlers Park & harmless homeless?…

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From Mark Horvath at InvisiblePeople.tv:

“Brutal and senseless.”

This is how Cotton describes homelessness. It might just be the most succinct and heart-breakingly accurate explanation I’ve heard in a long time.

Read more on Video of Cotton: 16 years homeless & disabled, “Brutal and senseless”…

Dominic Mapstone on Change.org:

“Sleep-Outs for the Homeless” are staged around the globe to raise money and awareness for homeless. But don’t let the name fool you – instead of being a gritty, real-life glimpse into the devastation of homelessness, they are simply glorified slumber parties….”

Read more on Sleep Out for the Homeless: Worst Fundraiser Ever?…

Jimmy is 69 years old. He’s worked all his life, and is a military veteran, but now, at retirement age, he is living in a tent in the woods.

[video link]

Read more on Video: Jimmy, homeless in Greensboro…

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…