Tag: Homeless

These 10 Documentaries Will Change How You See America

Posted on by robbie

Documentary films are known for sparking social change. (Case in point: Who wants to eat at McDonalds after seeing Super Size Me or Food, Inc.? What parent suggests visiting SeaWorld after seeing Blackfish?) Though 2014’s nonfiction films weren’t massive box office hits, they pointed out injustice and lifted our eyes to the doers making a difference. Here are the 10 must-see documentaries that inspired us to action.

10. The Great Invisible

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 still darkens the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of altered ecosystems and ruined lives. Named best documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s documentary dives deep beyond the news coverage you may remember into a tale of corporate greed and lasting environmental damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDw1budbZpQ

9. If You Build It

Two designers travel to the poorest county in rural North Carolina to teach a year-long class, culminating in building a structure for the community. In this heartwarming story, 10 students learn much more than construction skills.
http://vimeo.com/79902240

8. The Kill Team

An infantry soldier struggles with his wartime experience after alerting the military his Army platoon had killed civilians in Afghanistan. On the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ long list for best documentary, Dan Krauss’s challenging film shows how morality dissolves in the fog of war and terror of battle.

7. Starfish Throwers

Three people — a renowned cook, a preteen girl and a retired teacher — inspire an international movement to end hunger. Jesse Roesler’s film includes the story of Allan Law, the man who handed out 520,000 sandwiches during the course of a year in Minneapolis, which we featured on NationSwell.

6. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story

A former Navy SEAL (formerly named Christopher, now Kristin) says that changing genders, not military service, was the biggest battle of her life. In retrospect, her SEAL experience takes on new importance as she comes to understand the true value of the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

5. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

An online pioneer who developed Creative Commons with the academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig at age 15 and co-founded Reddit at 19, Swartz crusaded for a free and open internet. Another potential Oscar candidate, the film poignantly recounts how Swartz ended his own life at age 26 after aggressive prosecutors initiated a federal case against him.

4. True Son

A 22-year-old black man recently graduated from Stanford returns to his bankrupt hometown of Stockton, Calif., to run for city council. Michael Tubbs convinces his neighbors (and the movie’s audiences) you can have “a father in jail and a mother who had you as a teenager, and still have a seat at the table.”

3. The Hand That Feeds

After years of abuse from their bosses, a group of undocumented immigrants working for a New York City bakery unionize for fair wages and better working conditions. Led by a demure sandwich maker, the employees partner with young activists to fight their case against management and the food chain’s well-connected investors.

2. Rich Hill

Three boys confront impoverishment, learning disabilities and dysfunctional families in this human portrait of growing up in small-town America. The backdrop to the teenagers’ lives is their Missouri hometown of 1,396 residents, where one in five lives in poverty and where the fireworks still glow every Fourth of July.
 

1. The Overnighters

Our top film and a favorite for an Academy Award nomination details how an oil boom draws a city-sized influx of workers to a small town in North Dakota, where they scrape by on day labor and live in their cars. With the heft, detail and narrative twists of a Steinbeck novel, Jesse Moss profiles the Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke, who welcomes these desperate men into a shelter called “The Overnighters,” to his congregation’s dismay.
 

Are there any documentaries that should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.

This Second Grader Saved for a Pet Snake, But Decided to Feed the Poor Instead

Posted on by robbie

Eight-year-old Keaton Snell of Winter Haven, Fla., assiduously saved his allowance and birthday money for months, trying to accumulate enough to buy himself a snake. Once he’d saved $114, he approached his mom about getting the pet, but she said he needed to wait until he was 10-years-old.
Keaton wanted to spend the money this year, however, so he decided to buy food for those less fortunate.
He got the idea from his second grade class, which has been talking about ways the kids can help the community and holding a food drive. His teacher, Lori Davis, tells the News Chief, “We’ve been having conversations about the less fortunate, and Keaton is particularly sympathetic about it. He came to me and said, ‘I want to spend $114 on food for the poor,’ and I thought that’s a lot of money, but it was totally his idea and it shows how deep in his heart he feels about this.”
Keaton started by raiding his pantry to give to others. His mom, Shannon Snell, says “I kept telling him he can’t give all of our food away. We need some, too. So it came to the point where he was like, ‘Mom, just take me to the grocery store, and I’ll buy the food.”
Shannon made a deal with her son that she would match his contributions. Keaton ended up donating 72 cans, which will stock the food pantry at The Mission, a Winter Haven, Fla., church organization that feeds the hungry and helps the homeless.
Keaton’s classmates were donating an average of about two cans per person, but when they saw all the cans he brought, it inspired them to give more.
Davis says, “He came into school with two bags overflowing with cans. The other kids saw it, we talked about Keaton using his own money and they all got really excited about it. They started bringing in more cans and we saw the school count rise a lot.”
So far, the school has collected 3,000 cans of food. As for Keaton, he may not yet have a pet snake, but his teacher rewarded him with one week during which he doesn’t have to wear his school uniform. “He went above and beyond,” Davis says.
MORE: When Skiers Leave Behind Warm Clothing, These Teens Dole it Out to the Homeless

The Military Gave This Veteran the Permission Slip She Needed to Lead

Posted on by robbie

From leading the 100,000 Homes Campaign to being recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change to founding the Billions Institute, an organization committed to supporting new solutions to global problems, Becky Kanis has committed her life to making bad things better.
Her motivation stems from one moment, which she shares in her Got Your 6 Storytellers talk. When she was a lieutenant in the 25th Infantry Division, a U.S. Army division in Hawaii, every single link in the communications system went from green to red. At three in the morning, Kanis stood at the colonel’s door — and with a knock, knock, knock — woke her up and explained the situation.
“She literally poked me in the chest and she said ‘un-f*** this lieutenant,’” Kanis says. The colonel could have kicked a trashcan; she could have micromanaged. But instead, she gave Kanis permission to fix the problem.
Kanis says that in order to do our part to make the world a better place, we should ask ourselves three big questions: What do you really want? What are you willing to let go of? And what lights up your heart? Kanis’s talk centers on how she has applied those questions and pursued answers to them in her own life. And it explores how we can all give ourselves permission slips to un-f*** things.
While her seven minutes onstage includes a lot of laughs, there is also a moment leaves the audience in awe. Kanis displays two images of a formerly homeless man named Ed Givens. First, he appears drunk, with his back against a brick wall, and later he appears in a suit at a party the White House threw to celebrate the success of the work that Kanis and others did to address homelessness.
“This is the kind of change that I know in my bones is possible in the world,” Kanis says. Watch the video, then join Kanis in her call to action to un-f*** big things together.

The Bay City’s Latest Plan to Combat Homelessness

Posted on by robbie

San Francisco is a city of paradoxes. Walking around, you can see evidence of the booming tech scene and expensively-clad citizens, yet it also has a chronic homelessness problem. But the City by the Bay finally thinks it may have a solution by combining the needs of both the homeless and corporations: tax breaks for community projects.
With 6,436 homeless people and 3,401 living on its streets, according to the Human Services Agency, San Francisco has to be inventive. And that’s where this new initiative comes in. As more and more tech companies, (like Twitter) move to the area, San Francisco is hoping that its new “community benefit agreement” will encourage these businesses to stay and improve the city.
Through the initiative, tech companies will receive multi-million dollar tax breaks if they set up residence in a troubled neighborhood and invest a portion of those tax breaks into improving it.
While some remain skeptical about the amount of money that a company will actually put towards a neighborhood, this program offers unique possibilities for great change. For instance, many tech companies will set up micro-apartment communities for their employees; if created for homeless people, there’s the potential to drastically reduce the problem.
Salt Lake City is a model for this type of project. Ten years ago, the Utah city started a program to combat homelessness through these micro-apartments communities. Apartments were set up outside of troubled neighborhoods, and residents were quickly placed into them, removing them from the negative influences.
In each housing complex, on-site counseling was available. These counselors helped residents beat drug addictions, find jobs and diagnose and treat mental diseases. The result? Salt Lake City now only has about 400 homeless persons.
Although there are differences in cost of living and other factors between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, there is possibility for replication and improvement.
For Matt Minkevitch, who runs Road Home, the main nonprofit homeless agency in Utah, these houses serve as a stepping stone.
“The idea is, we don’t want people to just live in this shelter,” Minkevitch tells San Francisco Gate. “We want to make it as comfortable as possible, but we want them to move on to housing — on to better lives.”
DON’T MISS: Ever Wondered What To Say To A Homeless Person? Here Are 5 Things to Say And 5 Things Not to Say

L.A.’s New Homeless Shelter Offers More Than Just Four Walls and a Roof to Those in Need

Posted on by robbie

When most of us think of helping the homeless, images of homeless shelters and food kitchens probably come to mind, not community gardens and running tracks. But Los Angeles thought the latter would be beneficial, so that’s what they developed.
The City of Angels and the Skid Row downtown area, in particular, has a chronic homeless problem. And since other policies and endeavors haven’t worked, the city decided to try something different. So they built the Star Apartment complex.
Not only does the 15,000-square-foot apartment complex offer 102 units, but it also boasts a community garden, library, running track, art room and exercise facility.  The purpose of the apartments is to instill a sense of normalcy for the residents — all of whom were previously homeless.
“The community that lives here should have a similar environment to anybody that could afford something more expensive,” Star Apartments designer Michael Maltzan tells the L.A. Times.
Sharing the building is L.A. County’s Department of Health Services Housing for Health Division. Using a variety of services, the Department works to improve the lives and health of the county’s homeless. Over the next 10 years, the Department’s goal is to provide housing for 10,000 people, according to the Huffington Post.
All of this is possible due to the efforts of the Skid Row Housing Trust, which helps find affordable homes for those with disabilities, poor health, mental illness and addiction and the low-income. In order to finance Star Apartments, the Trust received low-income housing tax credit equity from Bank of America and the National Equity Fund.
Any occupant of the Star Apartment complex who earns a salary must allocate 30 percent of it to their rent.
While it may seem that providing housing and amenities for the homeless would be costly to taxpayers and the city, it’s actually saving money. According to the 2014 study by the Central Florida Commission of Homeless, right now it costs about $31,000 a year to provide for one homeless person (due to the high cost of paying for medical and psychiatric hospitalization, jail time and emergency rooms), whereas operating the Star Apartments will only cost about $10,000 per resident for a year.
MORE: A Solution to Outdoor Urban Living, by Homeless People for Homeless People
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How TechShop Encourages the Builder Inside All of Us

Posted on by robbie

In honor of Manufacturing Day, which celebrates the importance of manufacturing in this country, NationSwell spoke with Mark Hatch, co-founder of TechShop, a nationwide organization that gives its members access to machines, tools, software and other professional equipment to create their own building projects.
The following is an edited version of the email interview.
What motivated you to start TechShop? 
[My co-founder] Jim Newton started TechShop with the simple dream of providing people who like to make things a place to go with all the tools they could never buy and where likeminded creative makers could help one another build their dreams.
What will success look like for TechShop?
Recently, a partner conducted a study of our member projects and found that over 30 percent of them were focused on making the world a better place in some way. That’s over 2,000 people building their dreams of a better world. Success is when we have hundreds of thousands or millions of people doing the same thing.
How does your background as a veteran shape the way TechShop works to ensure that veterans have access to these tools and services?  
As a veteran who served with a Green Beret “A” team, I have a personal connection to the vets that are using our space. Our veterans program was the brainchild of a collaboration between us, the Department of Veterans Affairs, GE and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense). This engagement paid for 1,500 vets to have access to TechShop annually for two years and helped us fund both the Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. locations. We have already begun to see vets use this benefit to launch their own companies and land better jobs.
Does TechShop attract a specific type of person? And are they looking to learn new skills to get back to work?
We have people from all backgrounds, but my favorite “bootstrap” story is of Marc Roth. At the time, Marc was homeless, and he used his last $50 to buy a new member special and training class that TechShop was running. He leveraged one class on the laser cutter to get himself back on his feet.
Why does TechShop need to exist?
Well, for example, the Bay Area TechShops, through its members, have created billions of dollars in sales, thousands of jobs and changed the world positively in small and large ways — from a baby incubation blanket that has already saved 87,000 babies’ lives to people who have accidentally started businesses after making something for themselves and then finding a market, to others who have completely remade their careers through discovering their inner maker.
Finally, why is the maker movement important for our country?
It taps into the natural human need to make things. The TechShop platform, which leverages software progress, hardware automation and easy-to-use tools, re-introduces our members to the creative person that lives in each of us. And it is through making things that we learn how to better manage the resources the earth provides.

What Happens When You Give a Homeless Person Money?

Posted on by robbie

As the saying goes, “A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.” But getting a little bit of cash for being nice? Well, that’s just icing on the cake.
That’s exactly what happened to some generous souls in Tempe, Ariz. who decided to donate their hard-earned money to a homeless person. Not only did the panhandler immediately give the money back, but these kind people were surprised with an additional $20.
As it turns out, that “homeless person” was actually YouTube star Dawson Gurley, aka Big Daws, who’s better known for his pranks on innocent bystanders (eating junkfood at the gym, playing drinking games at the library).
“I see a lot of videos on YouTube about giving to the homeless and doing great things,” Gurley says. “So today I wanted to give back to the people giving to the homeless.”
Even though there were some people who demanded that Gurley get off the streets or get a job, there were others such as the man at the one-minute mark, who wanted to give money even though he just got out of homelessness himself.
ALSO: Watch Why This Homeless Man Breaks Down In Tears After Walking Into His Friend’s House
At the end of the video, Gurley meets a woman named Charna Foley who has been struggling to find a job for three months. She breaks down in tears after receiving the YouTuber’s last $20. She later tells ABC15, “He gave me freedom that day to be normal and buy what I want.”
The clip, which is now going viral, has touched so many viewers that several have asked how they can also help Foley get back on her feet. Gurley has since set up a PayPal account for people to make donations to her (send funds to [email protected]).
DON’T MISS: Ever Wondered What To Say To A Homeless Person? Here Are 5 Things to Say And 5 Things Not to Say
 
 

The Latest Place to Grow Greens

Posted on by robbie

While urban farms are gaining popularity in cities across the country, some metropolitans are taking them to new heights. Literally.
Instead of planting gardens on the ground, some groups are utilizing rooftops to grow food to feed customers, students and the homeless.
One such urban rooftop farm is located at Roberta’s Pizza in New York City. Located in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, the restaurant has two small rooftop greenhouse facilities that produce 20 percent of the ingredients the restaurant uses throughout its multiple locations. And on the west coast, you’ll find Project Open Hand in San Francisco. This nonprofit uses its rooftop greenhouse to produce healthy meals for the sick and elderly. All of the herbs and greens are grown in the city headquarters, prepared by the chefs and then distributed across the city.
Schools are also a popular destination for rooftop farms. At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., a greenhouse sits atop the school’s Exploratory Hall. As part of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, the university’s greenhouse has three rooms — each paralleling a different climate. It has also partnered with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the university’s Potomac Heights’ vegetable garden, which feeds the homeless.
Chicago features a few different schools taking a unique approach to rooftop farming. The University of Chicago’s greenhouse sits atop the Donnelley Biological Science Learning Center.  Boasting 7,500 square feet of growing space, a portion of it is also used for drug research.
There’s also a local high school getting involved in the sky-high action. The Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School in Chicago has a hydroponic greenhouse on its roof. Since the school bases its curriculum on social transformation, it views social ecology and urban agriculture as vital components. So, the school uses its greenhouse to grow food for the students, as well as it serving as an educational tool.
And so far it’s working. For one student Jaleen Starling, the opportunity to work in the garden was life changing or at least lifestyle changing.
“When we get taught something, it’s never just for us to learn,” she tells New Communities. “It’s something for us to connect to. … Until I came to this school, I didn’t pay attention to food.”
So while these farms may be high up, they’re starting a movement on the ground.
To find more urban rooftop farms growing across the country, click here.
MORE: How This Coal Capital is Going Solar

Meet the Sanitation Worker Who Founded a Nonprofit That Helps the Homeless

Posted on by robbie

Garbage collectors take care of a lot of stuff many of us prefer not to think about. And for the past seven years, one especially thoughtful sanitation driver in Silver Spring, Md., not only collects his community’s trash, he also keeps an eye out for people who need help.
In 2007, Harvey was driving his route for Waste Management when he noticed a lot of people sleeping out on the streets — despite the fact that there were shelters nearby. “Sometimes I guess when the shelters get full they have no other place to go,” Harvey tells Good Morning America. “So they’ve got to turn to the streets even if it’s for a night or two they’re out there.”
Harvey couldn’t get the homeless people out of his mind. He and his wife Theresa began to make sandwiches and collect blankets, which he then distributed. But Harvey wanted to help even more. According to People Magazine, his brother helped him make a video of the homeless people along his route, which he showed his manager and then asked, “Is there anything we can do as a company?”
Harvey began to collect donations at work, and he and his wife soon founded God’s Connection Transition, a nonprofit that helps 5,000 homeless and low-income people a month. The Harveys convinced companies including Safeway, Pepperidge Farm and Costco to donate food, which they stock in a rented Gaithersburg warehouse. Hundreds of needy families stop in once a week to shop for what they need.
“As long as I know there’s somebody out here … It’s hard to go home sit at a table eat a meal,” Harvey, who still delivers care packages to homeless people in the early morning hours, tells Good Morning America.
MORE: Meet the Man Who’s Putting Dry Socks on the Feet of the Homeless
 

Ever Wondered What To Say To A Homeless Person? Here Are 5 Things to Say And 5 Things Not to Say

Posted on by robbie

When you see a homeless person, what do you do?
Most of us tend to have the same response: We avoid eye contact and walk a little faster. But you might also ponder the situation, thinking to yourself, What’s his story? How did this happen to her? How long have they lived on the streets? Maybe you even wanted to help, but didn’t know how to start a conversation.
Should you decide to talk to one of the more than 600,000 homeless individuals in the United States, what you say is vitally important. Utter the wrong thing, and you make a person in crisis feel less than human. Make the right comment, however, and you just might provide the help that he or she so desperately needs. Here’s what the experts advise saying and what’s better left unsaid.

What to Say

“I don’t have money, but is there another way I can help you?”

“This is an especially good thing to say if you’re uncomfortable handing over cash or don’t have any to offer,” says Jake Maguire, director of communications for Community Solutions, a national organization dedicated to solving complex problems like homelessness and poverty. Undoubtedly, money is something that a homeless person needs, but often there is a specific thing that can quickly help that individual out of a dire situation. Shaun Gasson, a 32-year-old homeless man in Portland, Ore., says that someone once asked him if he needed clothes. Not only did the generous soul leave him three bags of nice clothing, but also gave him a bike and some money.
You might also consider asking the person if she or he is actually homeless. Kara Zordel, executive director of Project Homeless Connect, a San Francisco agency that links the homeless with resources in the city, says that she often will say to a person on the street: “I see you sitting out here every day, and it makes me wonder where you sleep at night.” This allows Zordel to do a better job of helping others. Sometimes a person isn’t homeless and doesn’t need a place to sleep, but might be in desperate need of something else. In that case, Zordel often hands out pairs of socks or granola bars, along with her agency’s business card. Greg Staffa, a homeless man in Farmington, Minn., suggests filling plastic baggies with nonperishable raisins or chewing gum, which will definitely be consumed.

“Did you catch the game?”

Athletic events are often shown on televisions in shelters. “Talking about sports can be one of the most interesting, neutralizing things,” says Robert Marbut, a homeless advocate in San Antonio, Texas. So while the game you’re referencing depends, of course, on your locale, bringing it up is like talking about the weather — sports is a topic of conversation that you don’t have to be of a certain class to experience.

“Good morning.”

Or say “hi” or “hello” or try to acknowledge the person in some way.  “It’s good to hear kindness,” says Joe, who has been homeless in Portland, Ore., off and on for the past 16 years. Regardless of what your greeting may be, it’s important to look the person in the eye when speaking. According to another Portland man, Troy Thompson, who has been homeless several times despite being a skilled carpenter (when he can’t find work, he can’t afford to pay rent), one of the many difficult things about being homeless is that you feel less than human. “It’s like being invisible,” he says. Adds Marbut, “The non-homeless person almost never looks the homeless in the eye. If you just look a person in the eye and sort of nod, it’s the most respectful thing you can ever do.”

“How are you doing? Would you like to talk?”

These questions are great because they’re open-ended, Zordel says, giving the homeless person a  choice either to brush off a deeper conversation or engage in one without judgment or pressure. Don’t be surprised if the individual isn’t interested in chatting, though, says Joe. “You’re getting into people’s personal lives. Maybe they don’t want to discuss that with a complete stranger.” If, however, the person is open to talking, this can lead to a real conversation — and maybe even provide a way for you to offer help. But even if you’re just having a casual exchange, you could be satisfying an important need: social connection. Many who live on the streets battle the feeling that they’re inadequate or nonexistent to the rest of the world. Having a real conversation can reduce those sentiments.

“I will keep you in my thoughts.”

Offering a wish of good will can be a powerful thing to someone who’s homeless, says Gasson. And for those that are religious, saying a prayer for the person can provide some comfort.  “When somebody prays with you, it just makes you feel a little better,” he says. Which is the exact feeling you hope to give to someone who’s without a home.

What (Definitely) Not to Say

“Why don’t you get help?”

This assumes the person hasn’t already tried to get help. It also infers that homelessness is that individual’s own fault or a result of his or her own failings. Most homeless people are not chronically on the street. Instead, they’re living there temporarily because of an awful situation — whether it is because of a job loss and a resulting downward spiral, a flight from an abusive partner or an exorbitant rent increase while on a fixed disability or Social Security income. These individuals may have already tried a dozen different ways to get help, only to hear that they don’t qualify for a specific assistance program, for example. Or, they might not be aware of existing resources, in which case you could actually make a huge difference by pointing them in the right direction. Tell them about charitable groups like the Salvation Army, Safe Harbor or any local agency or nonprofit that works with the homeless. Or call your town’s 311 hotline and request a visit from an outreach or social services worker, suggests Maguire.

“Here’s a dollar. Please don’t use it to buy alcohol.”

If you choose to give someone money, it must be given without strings. Yes, a person who is homeless may use your gift for something that doesn’t necessarily help his situation, but your generous action could also provide an opportunity to start a conversation — and eventually lead to an opening to approach with more substantive help. “Not everyone is ready to receive what they need today,” Zordel says. “But we can take the first step together, engaging and building a trusting relationship…without expectations of the individual.”

“Why don’t you go to a shelter?”

To some homeless people, the conditions at some shelters are worse than on the street. Shelters can be loud, dangerous or require quiet times that don’t align with a person’s sleep habits. Plus, in many parts of the country, particularly big cities, there may not be enough beds available for the homeless population, adds Jenny Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco. For example, “There’s one shelter bed for every five homeless people in San Francisco,” she says.

“You don’t seem like you should be homeless.”

This is another common utterance, Friedenbach says. And while it may be well intentioned, a statement like this reveals your prejudice against homeless people. It conveys to the person that, for the most part, you presume the homeless to be smelly, or drug addicts, or mentally ill. Whereas the only thing that really connects all homeless people is the fact that they’re impoverished and don’t have access to subsidized housing at the moment, says Friedenbach.

“Get a job.”

Homeless people hear this comment most often. But it fundamentally misunderstands and refuses even to consider what the person is actually going through. Many homeless people suffer from mental illness or other conditions that prevent employment. Or they’re on the streets because they once had a job, but suffered an injury that ended their ability to work.
Case in point: Just before becoming homeless in 2009, Staffa was making $20.20 an hour in a union job in Farmington, Minn., working for an employer he had been with for nine years. An on-the-job injury ended that, Staffa says, right in the middle of the Great Recession. For three years after that, he lived out of his car. The impact on his psyche, he says, was damaging. “Several friends of mine tell me ‘just find a job and everything will be fine.’ But I have to find myself again.”
“If I had a job, I wouldn’t be out here,” adds Joe while panhandling in Portland, Ore.
Watch: Dr. Jim Withers Makes House Calls to the Homeless