Memoirous

 In my last post I linked to Jeremy Nicholls blog Setting Prisoners Free . Jeremy was head of the Men’s Program with Franck and Andre as undersecretaries. There were more professional terms but really they were the guys over the guys. A few weeks ago CCO lost one of their main guys: Franck. He was only 53. I can’t remember how long I’ve known Franck—it’s been that long. Whenever I think of CCO, it’s with Franck in mind. You see, he started there as a resident. Franck knew homelessness from the inside out. He came to this country from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from one of its iterations, from one of its many conflicts. He’d been unfortunately on the wrong side. He came and struggled with employment and finding housing—all the things necessary for establishing a beachhead somewhere new. After a stint at the shelter, Sandy Ramsey our director was walking by on the sidewalk and saw Franck and asked him if he needed a job, if yes follow me. He followed her into CCO...

As a writer I can keep writing despite the difficulty of getting a publishing contract. There are enough zines, magazines, and journals both print and online that will accept my stuff. With comedy you sort of NEED an audience—not only to become well known but to hone your craft. You HAVE to see what works and what doesn’t. It is very subjective. As part of an arts group in Chicago, I had an account with an online platform where you could send out arts announcements, find out about residencies or calls for submissions. It was a type of clearing house associated with the City of Chicago arts and tourism, from which I received several grants. Anyway, I put a call out for comedians to practice their set before a live captive audience: the men at our homeless shelter’s day drop-in program. We didn’t really have a name. When I came every week and Franck and Andre made an announcement that Ms. Jane was here, they called it the talking group. It was so casual that it was about nothing. I’m...

People have asked me: How was it? My recent bicycle tour, JOGLE, John o’Groats to Land’s End, top of the UK to the bottom, 1,100 miles over 19 days. Stiff, upper-lip Brits were high-fiving me at the airport, the check-in lady shook my hand, the guy at TSA was impressed—how was it?—he asked. I realized I sounded sort of pissy when saying, HARD. It wasn’t one thing, it was a hundred. Mostly it changed me. Comfort zone. Just by leaving home we are challenged, exchanging certainty, security, the known for round-abouts, metric, showers with extra knobs, electrical outlets with unwieldy prongs, brown sauce (?). Immediately I am thrown off-balance. And this was in England, where people speak English. Yet stopping to ask for directions I am aware that I am only able to take in half of what they are saying—hoping the second half will kick in when I need it, when I get to that part. Suddenly, the most common place experience sets my stomach into panic. ATM (cash machine), ordering a t...

The homeless shelter I help support, Cornerstone Community Outreach , has started a physical store called the Rummage Room with an on-line presence. Go to Facebook and LIKE to see their specials. I remember when I first came to Chicago and volunteered with this group. I was put in charge of the Freestore. Times have certainly changed. My husband reminded me Sunday that when the Freestore started it was a time still emerging from the groovy 60s—where a lot of stuff was supposed to be free. There still is: the shelter offers free hot meals and a weekly food pantry. Just drop in, no need to “qualifiy.” And, of course, all that free stuff from the 60s such as free love came at a price. It’s just at the time no one wanted to count the cost. CCO has been helping people since 1989 and over the years funding for the homeless has been getting less and less. Illinois and Chicago in particular are in a budget crisis that doesn’t seem at all near to being resolved. So the shelt...

“I Don’t Have To Run Anymore” – Misty’s Story My mother was a former nun. She left the convent to take care of my grandmother. All my life she has been a Christian woman, a great listener. She’s a very non-judgmental person. Every time I got in trouble she was there for me. To this day, she’s my best friend. My father worked two jobs. He provided for us and worked hard but he was an alcoholic. We didn’t see him much. My parents divorced when I was 5. As I got older, I wanted love and I went looking for it. When I reached my teens I started to drink and smoke marijuana. I was looking for affection and attention. At fifteen I became pregnant and I dropped out of high school. After I had my baby, Carlos, I got work at a local grocery store and by 16 I had my own apartment. Rent was $300 a month back then. My aunt helped with babysitting. I was 19 when I found out I was HIV positive. . . TO READ MORE CLICK HERE Cornerstone Community Outreach, the shelter where I volunteer,...

I subscribe to a number of blogs, one of which is Setting Prisoners Free by Jeremy Nicholls where he writes and photojournals about the homeless in Chicago. Check it out! I will frequently re-post or share snippets from his blog. Jeremy is a case manager with Cornerstone Community Outreach ( CCO ) here in Uptown, Chicago. CCO recently has had a number of successful housing victories. The social work field is very statistic oriented. Numbers play a large part in who gets money—and outcomes—that's the lingo for what we sometimes refer to as miracles. Men and women who have been chronically without an address, living on the streets, homeless. Jeremy has tried to breakdown what’s behind this phenomena of housing some of the hardest of the hard-to-place. Though there are a number of factors he has cited one thing in particular: iPads. This from his post “Making Housing Happen” : I believe 2 tools have helped create many stories of successful movement. Firstly, carry...

As I mentioned in my last blog I’ve been reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.  I am aware that this book has caused much controversy. Many people are inflamed alone by the title. As a lawyer she is tying the increase in mass incarceration to the theory that black and brown minorities are the target of intentional, racially motivated profiling. Duh. I’ve seen this on the streets of Uptown, especially with the residents I work with at Cornerstone community Outreach, a homeless shelter on the northside of Chicago. All too often I hear from our local politicians that they are concerned about crime. I’ve come to recognize that “community safety” is code for clearing the streets of unwanted people such as the poor, homeless. That’s one of the reasons our alderman has removed benches at bus stops. Really? Is that why I see the elderly waiting, sitting uncomfortably on fire hydrants—because someone is afraid the homeless will use the benches to spread out...

I’ve written at this blog before about media saturation. Where even something as significant as the War on Poverty gets churned over and over into a sound byte. Anyway, I listen to NPR in the morning and been hearing about the impact of this far-reaching legislation. At least that was how it was envisioned. I can tell you from my experience living in Uptown these past few years—it feels like a War on the Poor. When I first came to Uptown it felt like a VERY DIFFERENT place. There was trash every where, people lived in their cars, vacant lots were full of trash. Every weekend a building burned. I and a number of other residents worked to improve the lives of the people around us. At times it seemed like a war, being surrounded by rubble and the wounds typical of those living in poverty. I remember one guy, a terrible junkie who would come by for our neighborhood feeding program. I remember thinking, He could be my brother. He was young and somewhat attractive—as if he’d...

I've blogged here before about the Chicago Marathon ( see other posts ). It's been getting way too big and corporate through the years. The decision to run it is almost now on the level of mortgaging a house. People nowadays are paying quite a bit in order to be punished for 26.3 miles. But that's the easy part. The event gets sold out n a matter of minutes, okay a day, and that's if the system doesn't get overwhelmed. This year there was a major hiccup and about 15,000 runners had to wait and see if they were actually signed up. Many runners also double-paid by registering twice. A simpler on-line system has to be devised. Once the marathon is sold out (about 45,000 runners) then the only way to get a number is to attach yourself to one or more charities that have been given a block of numbers for fundraising. How do I know all of this? Because I help promote Team CCO which raises funds for a local shelter. The team has all sorts of incentives for people interest...

This is Resurrection Week or Passover, depending on one's religious background. For some there will be no miracle or rescue, symbolic or otherwise. (WBEZ/Odette Yousef) Jack King lived under the Wilson Ave. viaduct, beneath Lake Shore Drive. It's where he slept as he had no permanent address. Recently Mr. King was interview by WBEZ, local PR station. CLICK HERE to hear, listen to news piece. I saw Jack probably 4 times a week as I ran from my house to the jogging path thru the park. Granted he seemed fairly healthy then, but many of the homeless that I've written about and also Jeremy Nicholls at his blog: Setting Prisoners Free many of these men and women are in fragile health--both mental and physical. Yet as Jeremy and I have written sometimes all it takes is giving these people a proper bed, a simple room, allowing them to have routine, a chance to take medications, a meal schedule and, as we can testify, a miracle occurs. Read HERE and HERE (I love how Je...

  TEAM CCO. COM RUN FOR SHELTER The deadline to register for the Chicago Marathon is Monday, February 19th and usually it sells out in a couple of hours (I know crazy) but what ' s even crazier is that once it is sold out people will PAY ANYTHING to get a number and so they end up paying anywhere from $500 to $1000 for an entry number. W hat we're hoping is that people will: Step one, go to www.teamcco.com read it over and fill out the Team CCO 2013 Early Contact form, and we will contact you within 24 hours. Step two will be to sign-up for your individual Team CCO page on CrowdRise.com/teamcco2013. Step three will be for you, on February 19th at 12pm Central, to register yourself for the 2013 Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Prior to the registration date, Team CCO will send you your own registration redemption code and unique URL. Step four is run, raise and be proud of the work you are doing! Join TEAM CCO and receive these benefits ...

Please ask James Cappelman, alderman of the 46 th ward of Chicago—WHY are you shutting down a program for elderly, disabled homeless men right now, in the middle of winter, at Christmas? And if his office says they are not shutting it down but that the men can use REST, then ask the alderman WHERE will the elderly, disabled homeless men go during the day when they must leave the building? And HOW the men with Stage 4 cancer and using walkers and canes will be able to do all this transitioning? Ask James Cappelman: WHY are you shutting down an existing program that is already funded and in place and working well at CCO? Email: info@james46.org Tel: 773-878-4646 Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago supports Cornerstone Community Outreach and loves our programs!

This is from Jeremy Nichols @ Setting Prisoners Free George: Homeless and Fragile... My co-worker introduced George to me.... He looked like an fragile old white man; he was scruffy, pale and scrawny, he had a dazed and glazed look in his eyes and when he spoke, we struggled to find any rationality or logic in his words. George seemed to be unsure who he was, where he was and what he was doing. And then there was something that made this whole situation worse; this fragile old man, who could barely stand up, was homeless! Yes, homeless! Homeless in the dead of winter! Homeless and struggling to survive. Homeless and lacking any sense of direction. Homeless and sick. Homeless and alone. Homeless and fragile! As with a number of our participants, George carried a paper bag, (protected by a plastic bag), full of his myriad of medications. He had a host of medical issues that were triggered by a failing liver, kidney problems and sarcoidosis, causing this poor fragile...

It’s that time of year—when people decry the war on Christmas. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing another war, a silent war—on the elderly. This is not exactly a marginal population, but rather a sizeable chunk of America. Actually world-wide demographics are shifting as young people are delaying marriage, children, often times full-time employment. The recession/depression probably has a lot to do with this. But the Baby Boomers were always going to get older, always going to suck the life out of Medicare and Social Security. Between the shelter (CCO) and a retirement community where I write up resident’s life stories (Friendly Towers), I know quite a few seniors on fixed incomes. There really isn’t a lot of extra. This month both of these programs have been impacted by a war on the elderly. At CCO the director has been very deliberate about going out to the parks, the loading docks of abandoned warehouses, searching under the city’s viaducts for people sleeping rough, out in t...

I work at a homeless shelter working amongst women--but every time I go there are always, especially as it is summer, swarms of children playing out front or in the lobby area. It breaks my heart. Here is a link to an article I just read at Salon: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/how_america_became_a_country_that_lets_little_kids_go_homeless_salpart/ about kids and homelessness. Here is also a link to a video where Demarra from the shelter where I volunteer tells her story of being a homeless student: http://www.ccolife.org/?p=2919 Here are some excerpts from the Salon article: "After hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005, advocates for the homeless were horrified to find that the storms had left one in 50 American kids without a home, a record high, according to a report by the  Coalition for Family Homelessness.  But only a few years later the financial crisis outperformed nature in casting catastrophe on poor Americans. After record...

I volunteer at Cornerstone Community Outreach a homeless shelter in Chicago. I do two programs there with both the men and the women. If planned budget cuts go through there is the possibility we will love at least 58 beds from the shelter. At this point we serve at any given time 500 people daily through the shelters we staff and Leland Building, a next-step program. We house, feed, and provide clothes and other necessities in order to assist families, men, and women to get back on their feet. Here is a link to CCO Life where you can view a really sad video about what it is like to be a homeless school student. Please call these reps before 5pm today! You could simply say, “Please don’t cut homeless shelters out of the Illinois budget!” The reps know the issues and you don’t have to talk forever or sound like you know all about it. If you get voice mail leave a message. Cuts ARE happening we need to let them know that the poorest of the poor shouldn’t be losing servic...

I teach creative writing at a homeless shelter. I use the word “teaching” very loosely. The emphasis is really on talking and sharing and if anything good or creative comes from it, then so be it. Writing is just an excuse to communicate with each other. Actually that’s what it’s always been for me. It’s my secret power. That thing I carry around inside of me and pull out when I need it. Like a sharp knife or jewel box, a treasure trove. It makes me feel special, set apart, desirable. Anyway, I like to keep things easy and as non-threatening as possible for the ladies. I have to be careful when choosing a subject for the women to write about—even the Cubs can bring up dark stuff hidden inside of them. So I started with a prompt sure to arouse good memories. Ice cream truck! We went around in a circle sharing. Orange push ups. Mickey Mouse Pops. Drumsticks. Twenty-five cents. Fifty cents. The change their mama’s gave them from the bottom of her purse. The tinny tunes coming fr...