INVISIBLE PEOPLE TV - ROAD TOUR TO GREAT BRITAIN

INVISIBLE PEOPLE TV LINK

"The first signs of a serious homelessness crisis in England’s towns and cities are emerging, with increases in rough sleeping, street drinking, crime and antisocial behavior as a result of swingeing cuts to hostel and housing services. Charities have warned that official figures showing a 14% rise in people classed as homeless are just the “tip of the iceberg”, because they fail to capture huge numbers who have been displaced from their home and are living with friends, in hostels or on the streets. For 10 days early July Invisible People will tour the UK helping homeless people and homeless services tell their story."

HOMELESS CENSUS 2013 HAPPENING NOW : DO YOU WANT TO BE COUNTED?

The people behind this census claim that it brings needed funds.  Some homeless feel it's a real invasion of privacy, and useless, as they get counted and no they do not get help.  They are reached out for to give their name and other identifying information, not for food, shelter, and clothing. Where the information goes and how long it stays there about you, few trust.  Here is the official site, and it's happening now, so they are looking for volunteers to go around to parks, shelters, and the usual.

GREATER LOS ANGELES HOMELESS COUNT
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) conducts the Greater Los Angeles  Homeless Count every two years, as part of its mission “to support, create and sustain solutions to homelessness in the City and County of Los Angeles by providing leadership, advocacy, planning and management of program funding.” LAHSA is a Joint Powers Authority established in 1993 as an independent agency by the County and the City of Los Angeles. LAHSA is the lead agency in the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, coordinates and manages over $70 million dollars annually in Federal, State, County and City funds for programs providing shelter, housing and services to homeless persons in Los Angeles City and County.

VENTURA COUNTY UNITED WAY HOMELESS COUNT 2013

COUNTS ARE ALSO BEING DONE IN SAN DIEGO, SAN BERNADINO, and Other Counties.

MINISTRY WATCH - A CONSUMER REPORTS OF CHRISTIAN CHARITIES

MINISTRY WATCH LINK

We just heard about MINISTRY WATCH, an independent watchdog group that will tell you, be you a donor, volunteer, or someone who is now a "charity case," if a ministry is a scam or a shining light. MinistryWatch.com founder Rusty Leonard was interviewed on ABC's 20/20 with John Stossel regarding the lack of financial transparency among some televangelists.

Very interesting. 

VENTURA COUNTY HOMELESS - UNITARIAN CHURCH OFFERING HELP

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH - VENTURA HOMELESSNESS link here!

"An average of 600 residents are homeless daily in the city of Ventura; an additional 21,000 are at risk of becoming homeless.


Ventura has no year ‘round emergency shelter.

Ventura has the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the county; most often they are long-time residents.

One out of every five residents in Ventura is one incident away from homelessness.

Our homeless neighbors are most often long-time residents, not transients passing through from somewhere else.

The majority of our homeless neighbors are invisible, not seen as they sleep in their cars or campers and get up and go to work every morning.

Many of our homeless neighbors have jobs and most are educated through high school with at least some college education.

Most of our homeless neighbors will eventually work their way back to a more stable living situation, but not without first enduring tremendous hardship.
Approximately 25% of our homeless residents are veterans.

A small percentage of homeless people are chronically homeless. They often suffer from some form of mental illness or have a serious disability. They may be self-medicated on drugs or alcohol to the point of chronic dependency.

5654 Ralston Street Ventura, CA 93003
(805) 644-3898 

Call for information.  This is not a shelter.  We think the people of this church mean to help.

HIV POSITIVE or FULL BLOWN AIDS? HOMELESS? SPECIAL PROGRAM - HOPWA

LOS ANGELES The Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) Program link here!

The Los Angeles Housing Department administers the HOPWA grant for 29 agencies and 4 housing authorities to provide housing related supportive services and rental assistance programs to low income, homeless and at risk homeless persons living with HIV/AIDS in the County of Los Angeles. The fund is used for a wide range of programs.

The link should answer these questions.

Who Qualifies for HOPWA?

Must be diagnosed HIV+ symptomatic, AIDS, or HIV+ with an unrelated disability.

Persons or households with incomes at or below 80% of the Area Median Income.

Short Term Assistance Program (STAP) Qualifications:

Must be diagnosed HIV+ symptomatic, AIDS, or HIV+ with an unrelated disability.

Must be living in or moving to Los Angeles County.

Must have a source of income that does not exceed 50% of the gross median income in Los Angeles County as defined annually by HUD.

Housing consisting of single individuals or two adults may not spend less than 40% of gross income; family households of three or more may not spend less than 30% percent of gross income for rent/mortgage and utilities.

Additional eligibility criteria may apply depending on financial assistance request.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2013 :  For more AIDS related information, use the search feature embedded in this blog to look for words like HIV or AIDS!

UPDATE NOVEMER 2013 : We received a couple comments that were testimonials promoting a doctor and method for curing AIDS and we've decided not to post anything like this because it is probably SPAM.  We know that people with HIV/AIDS are desperate for a cure, and we hope for a cure, but we're not in the position to evaluate.

BRIDGE TO HOME - OPERATING SANTA CLARITA SHELTERS

Bridge to Home - SANTA CLARITA SHELTERS  link here

Santa Clarita Shelter link BTO SANTA CLARITA

24/7 Hotline: 661.388.0080

Santa Clarita Shelter
23031 Drayton St.
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
Hotline: 661.388.0080

Security Office: 661.388.0086

Shelter Manager
Annette Guzman
Tel.: 661.388.0082


VIDEO ADDED  JUNE 2016

HOMELESS? REMEMBER YOU CAN LEAVE COMMENTS ON EXPOSE HOMELESSNESS

BY THE HOMELESS FOR THE HOMELESS...

There are lists of resources with no testimonials elsewhere on the net.  This is your chance to EXPRESS YOURSELF, tell about your experience.  If you want to post your comment on the blog post that featured the shelter or other social service where you had the experience, just use the search feature on this Google Blogger to bring up the post.

YOU CAN POST A COMMENT WITHOUT HAVING ANY E-MAIL OR BLOGGER ACCOUNT YOURSELF. 

Thousands are reading posts every month on EXPOSE HOMELESSNESS. Make your experience known.

1184 ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST HOMELESS THAT THEY KNOW OF - HATE CRIME!

article link HOMELESS VIOLENCE MORE COMMON IN CALIFORNIA THAN OTHER STATES  mentioning the recent crime of setting a homeless elderly woman on fire in Van Nuys.

"And according to the "State of Homeless in America 2012" by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, California has more than 130,000 homeless people; compared to New York's approximately 63,000 and Florida's less than 57,000 homeless.


Attacks on homeless include beatings, rapes, assaults with a deadly weapon, shootings, exploitation and harassment. In 2010, one percent of these acts of violence involved a homeless person being set on fire. Most attacks are "motivated by the perpetrators’ bias against homeless individuals or their ability to target homeless people with relative ease."

According to the coalition, most of this violence is committed by men under the age of 30..."


..."According to the National Coaition for the Homeless, between 1999 and 2010 there were


1,184 acts of violence committed against homeless people in the U.S. resulting in 312
homeless deaths. In 2010, the coalition ranked California number one for the most number of "hate crimes against the homeless," with 225 incidents occuring throughout these 12 years. Florida follows at number two with 198 incidents..."

GLENS TRANSITIONAL LIVING HOMES - LANCASTER CALIFORNIA

Homes for Homeless Men and Women
8810 West Avenue D10
Lancaster California, 93536

661-949-6659

"We mend broken lives ..providing food, clothing, and shelter, to those in need."  Serving Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernadino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange County, and San Diego."

We asked an outreach person what this means.  He said that they go out to people in all these counties and help them.

Call and ask, and as always, we want your testimonials!

UPDATE DECEMBER 2013... This post has gotten something like 235 hits so far, and we know that means that people in Lancaster are in need!  Please, anyone having an experience with this organization, we'd like to hear from you!

UPDATE DECEMBER 2014 - Still waiting to hear from some of you who have stayed at a Glen's Transitional Living Home...

UPDATE OCTOBER 2015 - Over 500 hits and we're still waiting for a testimonial or two!

P.A.T.H. People Assisting the Homeless (INCLUDES LONG BEACH AND SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA)

P A T H PEOPLE ASSISTING THE HOMELESS link here!

Focusing on building affordable housing...

Some of us have gone to PATH MALL to ask for help.  We liked that they had hair salon and clothing as well as food for the day.  Four options for Los Angeles

ALL INTAKES ARE DONE AT LOS ANGELES located two blocks northeast of the Vermont/Beverly Station on the Metro Red Line(subway).  Get off the Metro and walk DOWN THE HILL.

PATH Los Angeles
340 North Madison Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Ph: (323) 644-2200


PATH Hollywood Center
5627 Fernwood Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90028
Ph: (323) 960-3333


PATH West Los Angeles
2346 Cotner Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Ph: (310) 996-0034


PATH Gramercy  (Families)
1824 4th Avenue,
Los Angeles,CA,90019
Ph: (323) 737-7351

FOSTER CARE? LOS ANGELES CHILDRENS BUREAU

CHILDRENS BUREAU - LOS ANGELES COUNTY

In Los Angeles County more than 2,000 foster children turn 18 and leave foster care without an adoptive family. Over a third of these emancipated teens end up homeless or incarcerated during the first two years of living on their own and without the support of a family. Young adults may now remain in foster care until age 21 if desired. They may also access subsidized housing and tuition at a California college year around.


(We think they mean each year!)

WRITER AT SAN DIEGO VOICE SITES NATIONAL CENTER ON FAMILY HOMELESSNESS on HOMELESS STUDENTS

HOMELESS STUDENTS ARE AT RISK byu CARINA deMANIGOLD at VOICE OF SAN DIEGO

EXCERPT: Research shows that child homelessness has a negative impact on child development, and troubling reports from the National Center on Family Homelessness state that homeless children are eight times more likely to be asked to repeat a grade, three times more likely to be placed in special education classes and twice as likely to score lower on standardized tests. Homelessness for children means more than lack of a stable place to live; it also means more health problems, failing education, and possible chronic homelessness. These students face a range of problems regarding schooling, from finding a way to get to school, to having the appropriate clothing and finding a quiet place to study.


There is one piece of very important federal legislation, sometimes unknown to the general public, which is called McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 2002, that explicitly addresses the needs and concerns of homeless students. The legislation encourages states to provide homeless students with the same appropriate public education as their peers, including preschool, received by other students within the school environment. It guarantees homeless children and youths certain rights, and allows them to enroll in school immediately. The law requires states to revise regulations that may serve as barriers for the homeless students; however numerous educational barriers continue to exist.

UC SANTA BARBARA INDIVIDUAL SENDS US INSULTING ANGRY COMMENT

A small while back, we opened our comments and found a very angry and insulting comment from someone whose email was from UC Santa Barbara, possibly a student or employee account, calling us bullshit, telling us it was no wonder we were homeless, and suggesting we had used the link and small quote to an article unfairly.  We could feel this persons poison, but we decided to think about it.

We went back to that article and reread it, and we do not think we were confused by what we read, but after all this is why Google Blogger provides us the opportunity for others to link to an article and read it for themselves by providing easy link options. 

The small excerpt that we posted, to get your interest in reading the whole article as you skim through our blog posts, is entirely within the Fair Use rulings of copyright law, and typical of blogging on the net.  No one on the net who links to official web sites, etc, needs permissions for small quotes that might even promote someone else's web site, blog, product.  By linking we're sending traffic over.  THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS PHOTOCOPYING AN ENTIRE BOOK FOR A CLASS AND THEN RETURNING IT TO THE BOOK STORE FOR FULL CREDIT.  IT'S NOT EVEN THE SAME AS USING A COMPUTER TO COPY AN ENTIRE DVD!

In fact we consider ourselves conservative.  So far we haven't recieved a single request to take down a link to an article, post, or picture.

We've never set up a MySpace, A Facebook, or any other purely social networking site or there would probably be even more activity than the 3000 or so hits a month this blog has been receiving simply because people are searching out resources, want to know they aren't alone, or are curious about where they should put their charity dollars. 

We won't be posting this angry person's comment, not only because it was so pointed that we had to wonder if she was stable, but also because we can tell she doesn't know that if we did, it would expose her e-mail address to the entire Internet.

Why was this person so angry? 

We posted an excerpt and link to an article stating that it was from 2003 - that's 10 years ago.  The article itself has the byline of the person we named.  It starts with the pronoun "I" meaning that first paragraph by that person was a testimonial.  In fact, it was a very personal admission to start an article. It would be up to that person, the author, to take it down if she percieved that it was miswritten or misread, or simply if she no longer wanted it to be read.

The angry person said that the person who wrote the article lives (we take that to mean 10 years later) in a gated community and is a writer for NPR.  Well, maybe that's the progress she made in 10 years out of homelessness?  IF SO WE ARE HAPPY FOR HER!  WHAT AN INSPIRATION!

Additionally, this angry person said that if we needed testimonials we should go get them instead of linking to them!

Of course this person was full of assumptions and you know what they say -  assumptions make an ass of you and me.

We think that Lacey (if that was her real name) assumed that we are uneducated or stupid.  She assumed that she could be insulting to us because what?  Our poverty? Maybe she's just one more drugging and drinking UCSB student living off a trust fund from some rich parents that fuels her huge sense of entitlement, like telling us how to run our blog?!  (Isn't that one of those colleges where it takes five or six years to get a bachelors because of all the fancy travel in between?) 

Lacey assumed that we don't hear testimonials from homeless wherever we go.  We don't have to "go out" roaming affar for them.  We are not paid journalists with gassed up news vans and microphones filing reports to play on the 6 PM news but that does not mean our volunteer work here is less valid.  No, all we have to do is take a bus, go to the library, have lunch in a park, go to a feed or the laundry or walk down the street, and that's when homeless people are talking their experiences, sharing, in some cases helping each other survive.  That's when someone is talking about how they were treated at a shelter, or what some recruiter from a non-profit that says they help the homeless said to them, or what food was like at the food bank or that the police harrassed them last night.

At the same time, we know that the majority of homeless are not going online to express their opinions or share their experiences, because they don't know how to, or are using every last bit of their energy to survive, or because they are not in their right mind, or because they are afraid!  (We hear that one a lot! People are afraid if they are identified they will loose their shelter space or be harrassed.)  We try to post homeless and poverty activist blogs and link to testimonials because we know these are brave members of our homeless community.

In the month of December we met 6 people WHO HAD JUST FOR THE FIRST TIME BECOME HOMELESS, from a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds and ages.  One thing in common - no work.  We didn't have to look for them.
Perhaps "Lacey" and members of the UCSB alumni, staff, and the students, should watch the video AGING OUT, which is a documentary film by Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth, that follows the path of teens in foster care and what happens to teens when they have to make it on their own at a time when a lot of college students are going home to parents after graduation. 

One of them despite doing very well in foster care received thousands in scholarships and chose to go to UC SANTA BARBARA.  There she found herself without any co-signer for rent to live off campus, very little extra to live on, and despite working and taking classes, the pressure was too much for her.  She had a psychotic break.  Luckily, her ex foster mother did have the heart to take her back in, or she would have been on the street like many without families to go to on breaks, for the summer, and when illness strikes.  Sadly though, some years passed and this former UC SANTA BARBARA student was murdered on SKID ROW in Los Angeles in 2004.

Here is the link to AGING OUT, the film, and Risa Bejarano  is the student.
AGING OUT : THE DOCUMENTARY  read about Risa and other foster children here!

SAN FRANCISCO ASSEMBLYMAN TOM AMMIANO introducing CALIFORNIA HOMELESS BILL OF RIGHTS

CALIFORNIA HOMELESS BILL OF RIGHTS introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco).

The California homeless rights legislation follows intense advocacy by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Jericho: A Voice for Justice, the Western Regional Advocacy Project and other organizations.


"We need to stop criminalizing the behavior of people who have nowhere else to turn," said California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. "The Homeless Persons' Bill of Rights begins to give us a framework for appropriate approaches to protecting our communities and those who are vulnerable."


The California Homeless Persons' Bill of Rights and Fairness Act would guarantee certain rights for homeless people across the state, including:

•Freedom from discrimination in law enforcement,

•Freedom from discrimination in employment,

•Freedom from discrimination in housing and shelter,

•Freedom from discrimination in public benefits,

•Protection of the right to use public space,

•Protection of the right to keep personal property,

•Protection of the right to engage in life-sustaining activities,

•Protection of the right to legal counsel when prosecuted.


UPDATE AUGUST 2013 - PLEASE SEE OUR SIDEBAR FOR VOTING INFORMATION. YES YOU CAN VOTE THOUGH HOMELESS!

ERIC CLAPTON - ISN'T IT A PITY?