HUNGER ACTION LA 2015 BEGINS CAMPAIGN TO LIFT CALIFORNIA SENIORS AND DISABLED OUT OF POVERTY - ONLINE PETITION

HUNGER ACTION - LOS ANGELES - LATEST ACTIVISM  whole website


just one link!

2015 Begins Campaign to Lift California Seniors and Disabled Out of Poverty

Happy 2015! Now, please sign our statewide petition calling for SSI/SSP benefits for seniors and people with disabilities to be raised above the poverty line:
http://bit.ly/CA4SSIPetition

Yes, we begin 2015 by asking you to join us in a statewide campaign to lift 1.5 million California seniors and persons with disabilities out of poverty by raising the SSI/SSP monthly benefits above the poverty line. (SSI is Supplemental Security Income, a federal payment, and SSP is the State Supplemental Payment, an additional portion provided by California.)

SSI/SSP participants rely on this monthly benefit to cover ALL of their expenses — food, shelter, medicine, clothing, transportation, utilities and more. Yet the current benefit leaves recipients under the federal poverty level and with insufficient income, ultimately faced with paying rent or buying food or medicine. California can do better than this.

We are building a new strong statewide coalition of organizations and individuals from many areas — anti-hunger, senior advocacy, disability rights, immigrant advocates, faith based organizations, housing advocates, as well as business owners, law enforcement, elected officials and many others.
This coalition known as CA4SSI is beginning to attract attention. The Sacramento Bee ran an article recently not only about the campaign to raise SSI/SSP but other benefits ranging from child care to family welfare, that have been cut or frozen especially during the recession, and have not been restored to sufficient levels even as the state budget climbs into a surplus.

Sacramento Bee: “Although federal funding grew, overall grants now are lower than they were six years ago, even without adjusting for inflation, said Scott Graves, research director at the California Budget Project. State finance officials estimate the individual maximum monthly grant in January to be $889, down from $907 in 2009. That’s a bit higher than the Budget Project’s $881 estimate.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/state-budget/article5390229.html#storylink=cpy

SAINT STEPHENS LUTHERAN CHURCH - GRANADA HILLS - DAILY FOOD - NO ID REQUIRED BUT...

SAINT STEPHENS LUTHERAN CHURCH - GRANADA HILLS

call ahead to make sure they have food.
Monday through Friday 9 am to 12 noon.
NO ID REQUIRED

15950 Chatsworth St.         Granada Hills, CA 91344         (818) 891-1759

http://www.stephenschurch.org/


**********
It can be difficult to get an ID card, especially if you move to California and didn't bring your birth certificate and ID from another state.  We appreciate the no ID here

SCHIZOPHRENIA COULD BE CAUSED BY A WIDE VARIETY OF DNA MUTATIONS

INDEPENDENT UK - RATHER THAN ONE GENE - SCHIZOPHRENIA
The article begins ...

A wide variety of DNA mutations which differ from one person to another might play a decisive role in triggering schizophrenia according to two of the largest studies to date into the complex genetics of the mental disorder.

Doctors have long realized that there is a strong genetic component to schizophrenia, which affects one in 100 people at some time in their lives and tends to run in families, but the search of the “schizophrenia gene” has proved elusive.

Two independent studies that have analyzed the DNA sequences of patients and their parents – and compared them to healthy individuals – have found sets of key mutations that seem to interfere with the development of healthy nerve communications in the brain.

Scientists said that because so many mutations and genes are involved, it is unlikely that any two schizophrenia patients share exactly the same genetic faults, although the clinical symptoms may end up being similar.

“The major insight of this research is that we’ve identified an area of biological function that is relevant to schizophrenia, and the causes of schizophrenia. We’ve not been able to say that with any confidence before,” said Professor Mick O’Donovan of Cardiff University, the joint leader of the research.

Mike Owen of the Medical Research Council’s Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, said: “This degree of convergence from several studies is unprecedented in schizophrenia genetics and tells us that for the first time we have a handle on one of the core brain processes that is disrupted in the disorder.”

KEEP READING - go to the full article!

LINK TO OTHER HOMELESS AND POVERTY ACTIVIST BLOGGERS ON OUR SIDE BAR!

If you are currently homeless and blogging, or you know of a homeless/poverty in America blog that you respect, please leave a comment with the URL so we can get to it, read it, and consider posting it on our sidebar.

Our policy is that once the blog is up, it stays up until it no longer appears on the net.

We've found a lot of blogs that people have stopped writing, for whatever reason.  We hope the reason is that they are no longer homeless. We dread that the blogger may no longer be alive!

VINTAGE BUTTERFLIES FLUTTER

Google Images - Public Domain Vintage Images

OK for non profit use only.

NICOLETTE WINGERT and NURSES4CHRIST MINISTERING TO STREET HOMELESS - AZUSA - GLENDORA -

NURSES4CHRIST OFFICIAL SITE 

Nurses for Christ is an outreach ministry that was founded in 2004 and began in Azusa, California. ...Nurses for Christ is a publicly recognized charitable  organization that serves those in an immediate need of food, water, clothing, blankets, hygiene packages etc. Most people that we help are homeless, while some are just in need of a word of encouragement. But because this is a place of no hope, we try to be consistent by showing up daily. Our consistent presence helps them with their anger and their sense of isolation caused by the rejection and inconsideration of others who gave up on them due to their addictions....

By 2006, the silver-haired woman, raised in Naples, Italy, was visiting the homeless daily, joined by community volunteers and students from Azusa Pacific University. In 2008, after the vacant lot was sold and the homeless had moved to different locations around Azusa, Covina and Glendora, Wingert was joined by Phillip Stern, another volunteer who was willing to join her every night, to make sure that she had backup in case of danger. Most of the people are her friends, she says, but that was a risk she didn’t need to take. The pair make 60 sandwiches nightly, with Wingert cooking some form of hot food: soup, pasta, chili, hot dogs. Protein and fresh vegetables are key ingredients and sometimes volunteers will cook so she doesn’t have to, or donate something for dessert, Wingert says.

SAN GABRIEL VALLEY TRIBUNE - RECENT ARTICLE

The group was in need of a new car recently, as the donated station wagon they used to drive around the valley was beginning to have trouble. So an anonymous donor stepped up and offered Wingert $5,000 toward a new car, a 2014 Jeep.
“We still owe $12,000 on it, but wow, what a blessing,” Wingert said.
The next challenge Wingert faces is finding a way to pay for an increase in liability insurance, as the group uses the kitchen at Glendora’s Church of the Brethren to cook meals for the homeless but could be facing a search for a new host church in 2015.

ANTI HOMELESS CAGES? PROTESTS IN FRANCE - SHAME ON ANGOULEME! WONDER WHAT MERCHANTS ARE SELLING ALCOHOL?

FRANCE 24 : PROTESTS SPARKED by ANTI HOMELESS CAGES

The French town of Angoulême stirred up controversy on Christmas Eve by putting cages around public benches to keep homeless people at bay.

Shopkeepers in Angoulême, in central France, said they were fed up with drunks monopolizing the benches and scaring customers away.

A spokesman for the city told AFP the seating areas were used “pretty much exclusively by drunks every day”....

Others took to social media to express their “outrage” at such a gross violation of the festive season's traditional emphasis on charity and largesse.

According to local daily "La Charente libre", the town's centre-right administration has acknowledged what it called a "glitch" and suggested that it might "temporarily remove" the cages.

Late on Christmas day, teenagers managed to dismantle one of the cages, and the rest were removed by city hall later “as a safety precaution”, although a spokesman for the mayor told AFP it was a “temporary measure” and the cages would be back.


**************

ANYONE WANT TO END THE SELL OF LIQUOR?

TRANSGENDER VETS HAVE SUICIDE RATE HIGHER THAN VETERANS IN GENERAL - MORE LIKE THAT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

NEW STUDY FINDS SUICIDE RATES AMONG TRANSGENDER VETERANS ---

Veterans of the U.S. armed forces who have received a diagnosis consistent with transgender status are more likely to have serious suicidal thoughts and plans and to attempt suicide. A new study shows that this group has a higher risk of suicide death than the general population of veterans, as described in an article in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the LGBT Health website until January 16, 2015.

Based on data gathered from the VA National Patient Care Database from 2000-2009, John Blosnich, PhD, MPH and coauthors from VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and University of Pittsburgh (PA), University of Rochester (NY), VA Central Office (Washington, DC), East Tennessee State University (Johnson City, TN), and VISN2 Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention (Canandaigua, NY), determined that while the suicide death rate among veterans with transgender-related diagnoses was higher than for veterans in general, it was similar to the suicide death rate for veterans with serious mental illness such as depression or schizophrenia.

VALENTINE BUTTERFLY

LUCINDA WILLIAMS - PASSIONATE KISSES

SHELTER LOVE? ARE YOU IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE YOU MET AT THE SHELTER? QUESTION FOR HOMELESS

OK, now that you're in a shelter, now that you're getting a little more sleep, taking showers, have some new used clothes, and decompressing from the stress of street life and survival, maybe you're getting back in touch with your feelings, and maybe there is someone else at the shelter that you have a flirtation with, maybe you've got a crush or are even in love?

STACY LATTISAW - I FOUND LOVE ON A TWO WAY STREET

UNITED STATES IS LOOSING A GENERATION TO POVERTY BY MONICA POTTS

DAILY BEAST US LOSING GENERATION TO POVERTY

EXCERPT

"The world was incredibly different. But the way we measure poverty remains the same. We also still imagine poverty looks the way it did in 1964. In reality, economic hardship is much more commonplace, and its appearance is more subtle. Its effects, however, are no less devastating.
This week, when the United States Census Bureau released its poverty data for the year 2013, it showed the first significant decline in poverty since the Great Recession hit: down from 15 percent to 14.5. Greeted more cheerily by economic observers was the news that child poverty had made its biggest drop in years: down almost 2 whole percentage points. It was better news than observers expected.

It’s all relative, though, and enthusiasm was qualified. These numbers are still higher than they were before the recession. In a statement, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, a left-of-center think tank in Washington, wrote that if current trends continue, it would take until 2020 for poverty to fall to its 2000 level..."

CYNDI LAUPER ON YOUTH HOMELESSNESS and THE TRUE COLORS FUND - HELPING KIDS WHO HAVE BEEN THROWN AWAY BECAUSE OF THEIR SEXUALITY

CYNDI LAUPER SPEAKS ON THROW AWAY YOUTH and the REALITY ON THE STREETS.
7 percent of kids self identify as LGBT but 40 % of homeless kids are gay...

TRUECOLORS FUND

GOV TRACK - HOMELESS AND RUNAWAY ACT INFORMATION 

HOW LABELING SOMEONE " HOMELESS" HURTS - A GREAT ARTICLE VIA TRIPLEPUNDET! ARE YOU DEFINED BY WHAT YOU LACK?

TRIPLEPUNDET - :LETS CHANGE TTHE IMPACT OF DEFINING HOMELESS PEOPLE "HOMELESS"  full article

Excerpt: "Whatever it may be in your case, odds are that what you lack does not define you, at least in the eyes of others. You are a friend, you are a colleague, you are a runner, you are a painter, you are funny, you are you. You may lack something very important, but it is probably not your primary identity.

Unless you are homeless.

People who live on the streets — people like Silas, Jessica, Adam and my Uncle Mark, before he passed away — are defined by what they lack. During their period(s) on the streets, their identity is cemented. Can you imagine being described by others primarily as a “housed” person? This would feel dehumanizing and reductionistic, and yet it is still something you possess. Being labeled solely as “homeless” is extremely awful in and of itself.

A large percentage of the homeless population hides the fact that they are homeless. They want to retain a modicum of dignity, since homeless people are seen as (in the words of some of the homeless individuals I’ve spoken with) “garbage,” “pieces of ****,” “lazy,” “worthless,” “bums.”..."

"WFD" WITHOUT FIXED DOMICILE - ANOTHER WAY TO SAY HOMELESS

WFD  meaning WITHOUT FIXED DOMICILE is just one of the many ways that we homeless are defined.  But it's a lot better than tramp, transient, or bum.

When you look at a homeless CHILD do you think tramp, transient, or bum?