After The Fact

Early yesterday afternoon, I ran into a couple who I met just a few months ago. Nice couple. Early thirties. One child. Socially conscious.

As we sat and chatted, they mentioned a post I’d written earlier this month. They weren’t able to recall the title of the post, but did remember that its main topic had been about what the community could do to help end homelessness. They also recalled that I had stated that homeless support services organizations were not the "cure all" to ending homelessness.  

Is It Okay…?

I get a lot of emails which ask me questions about homelessness. Most of the time, they are questions I’ve already addressed somewhere on the blog, so I usually just refer the person to that specific post.

Every so often though, an "old" question is asked in such a manner that it causes me to see that topic in an entirely new way. Then, there are questions which make no sense at all. Or rather, I should say that the question is one, which had the person taken just a few moments to consider what it was they were asking, they would have come up with the correct answer on their own.  

By Default

"Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind"
- John Donne, 16th Century English Poet -

At the beginning of May, I published the post, Contrasts.

In it I spoke about the deaths of two Los Angeles area homeless men: Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid. Both had been killed in deliberate "hit and run" incidents. And, both men were murdered by the same two individuals.  

Can You Be Sure?

Over that last few weeks, on more than one occasion, I’ve written about the mortgage crisis and how I believe that some of the folks who have been foreclosed were going to end up homeless. In addition to that, I also mentioned that because of the economy being in the doldrums that there were also a lot of people who were facing evictions – and that some of them would end up being homeless.

This morning, in my emails inbox I found a number of news alerts which have confirmed my "predictions." One in particular caught my eye.  

News Overload

I get the news in a variety of ways: through news alerts direct to my email inbox; via RSS feeds direct to my computer desktop; and, of course, the television which is always on while I work and usually tuned into one of news channels.

Sometimes it feels like I’m having a news overload, and I start getting a headache from the utter stupidity of it all.

For example –