Project Suds Reaches Out to Homeless Veterans

Too often on this blog my writing deals with what angers me, and by gawd we have much to cause righteous fury.  So let me take a moment to inform about and applaud Project Suds, created and run by an American Legion Auxillary, which reaches out to homeless veterans and does their wash for free.

No matter how fastidious or creative these shelter challenged get when setting up their camp sites, doing wash proves problematic.  They have to use buckets to do their wash and have to choose between washing clothes and eating some days.

Project Suds, conceived of by Auxiliary 163 president Ann King-Smith and others, does the laundry for homeless veterans who come out of campsin the woods to get clothes washed, breakfast, and a modicum of respect. most importantly.

[The homeless veterans said that having clean clothes, knowing that there are those who care enough about them and treat them with respect does wonders for their self esteem. They said they more often are treated with suspicion and disdain in public.

“Everybody think because we are homeless we’re dirty,” {Russ} Marquis said. “We want to be clean.”]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2014/01/15/project-suds-takes-a-load-off/4483307/

Thr project works so well it has received a national award, one of only six projects to "win," and has spread to other states.

Some times, the simplest gestures mean the most.

Welcome Home, Female Veterans

Welcome home female veterans.

Sent to fight illegal and immoral wars based on falsehoods, and serving in a system that condones and maybe even countenances rape, they now try to live under the burden of traumatic stress and become homeless after coming home.

Is this a great country or what?

[Even as the Pentagon lifts the ban on women in combat roles, returning servicewomen are facing a battlefield of a different kind: they are now the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, an often-invisible group bouncing between sofa and air mattress, overnighting in public storage lockers, living in cars and learning to park inconspicuously on the outskirts of shopping centers to avoid the violence of the streets.

While male returnees become homeless largely because of substance abuse and mental illness, experts say that female veterans face those problems and more, including the search for family housing and an even harder time finding well-paying jobs. But a common pathway to homelessness for women, researchers and psychologists said, is military sexual trauma, or M.S.T., from assaults or harassment during their service, which can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/us/female-veterans-face-limbo-in-lives-on-the-street.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&_r=0

Homeless Children in America

Update: That didn't take long.  Jesus, Rick, didn't our Jesus say let the little children come to Him?  That level of concern indicates to me He wants even poor children to get health care under Medicaid, to have roofs over their heads, to start a school day without belly pains from hunger.


Rick, you coulda thought about it a couple days instead of showiing what a heartless and cruel bastard you are.


Fie on thee thou craven poltroon!


[Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Friday it’s unlikely that Florida will expand its Medicaid program in order to lower the number of uninsured residents...


According to Census data released last year, Florida had the nation’s third-highest rate of residents without health insurance during the past three years.]
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/29/2874460/gov-rick-scott-says-he-likely.html 




Surely, Governor 48.9% in FL will take the extra funds from federal governement so homeless children can get health care at least.

[The U.S. Education Department reported that, for the first time, the number of homeless students in America topped one million by the end of the 2010-2011 school year. These kids live in shelters and on the streets, and increasingly in hotels and on the couches of friends and relatives. On one hotel-lined stretch of highway -- a road leading to Disney World -- Nilan heard of schools where there are as many as 25 homeless students in classes of 28. The government report said 1,065,794 homeless kids were enrolled in schools in the 2010-2011 school year, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year and 57 percent since the start of the recession in 2007.

"The number is horrifyingly high but it probably is half of what the number really could be if the kids could be counted," said Nilan. The count doesn't include homeless infants, children not enrolled in school, and homeless students that schools simply failed to identify.]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/homeless-students-us_n_1635709.html

Prison Labor Clears Camps of Homeless Humans at Behest of Foreign Owners

[CHARLOTTE COUNTY - In the woods near the Port Charlotte Town Center mall, a weathered, plastic red and blue flowered wreath marks a path where sheriff's deputies and a prisoner crew will navigate heavy equipment to clean out 16 homeless camp sites today...

Charlotte County sheriff's officials emphasized the camps' "environmental hazards."

"It's a quality-of-life issue," said Billie Hatmaker, an environmental crimes investigator, nodding to the retail stores. "Look how close we are to businesses."

The county treats the abandoned camp sites as environmental hazards because of possible human waste, so Hatmaker is accompanied by an agent from the state Department of Environmental Protection to oversee the cleanup.

Charlotte officials cannot say where residents cleared from the dozens of camps have gone. But they draw a distinction between those who are chronically homeless and unwilling to accept help and those who are merely "homeless" and economically displaced.

There is a difference, deputies insist, and it has to do with alcohol and drugs.

"People with economic issues will normally accept our help," said Hatmaker.

That usually means referring people to the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition, the area's only shelter, which has room for 52 people and typically has a waiting list.

The county does not offer transportation.

Charlotte deputies have initiated the camp sweeps by tracking down property owners and giving them a choice: Sign an order that declares the campers trespassers, in which case the county offers to use prisoners to clean up the sites at no cost, or resist.

"If the owner won't agree, then it's a code enforcement issue" and county workers will clean it up and send a bill, Hatmaker said.

Tracking down landowners has involved international calls to people as far away as Hong Kong and Japan.

"Many of these people have bought the property sight unseen," he said, adding that they "are more than happy" for the cleanups...

He said the cleanups do not cost the county anything because officers work their normal hours and the prison labor is free.]   Emphasis added

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101204/ARTICLE/12041022/2416/NEWS?Title=As-homeless-seek-safe-haven-counties-seek-out-solutions

http://goo.gl/maps/G9sD