PORTLAND, Maine — Members of a Portland homeless advocacy group turned to a familiar holiday prop Monday in an effort to dispel what they said are common misconceptions about people living in shelters or on the streets.
Representatives of Homeless Voices for Justice unveiled an eight-foot-tall house-shaped Advent calendar, in which 10 doors and windows were opened to unveil the 10 “Truths of Homelessness.”
The public outreach event took place in the midst of an ongoing debate in Portland about a slate of recommendations made to the city council by a specially appointed task force on homelessness. The task force has urged city leaders to invest in a centralized intake location that can match homeless individuals with appropriate services and programs, as well as 105 more specialized housing units for the chronically homeless, among other recommendations.
The Portland Community Chamber of Commerce has responded to the task force plan with its own document posing the question of whether the city’s extensive network of service providers and shelter accommodations make Portland “too attractive” to homeless people, citing increases in the homeless population in recent years and the fact that two-thirds of the city’s shelter seekers come from outside Portland.
Approximately 440 people in Portland seek shelter every night, an increase of about 25 percent compared to even last year at this time, which was a previous high mark.
“A lot of [the Chambers concerns were based on] misconceptions,” said Jim Devine, who previously lived homeless in Portland and is now a member of Homeless Voices for Justice. “We want them to realize that homeless people are people first of all.”
Group spokesman Thomas Ptacek led the Advent calendar unveiling Monday in the swirling snowfall in Monument Square, saying each year the organization holds some kind of holiday event.
“This year, what we were focused on was getting out the truths about homelessness,” he said. “There are a lot of myths and misconceptions floating around out there.”
The 10 “truths” revealed by the group Monday were:
1. Homeless people are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, family and friends — members of our community.
2. Homelessness is difficult and depressing. People use a homeless shelter because they have no choice — or the [alternative] is worse than sleeping on a 4-inch mat on the floor inches apart from [another] person.
3. One in three Maine people don’t have enough income to meet even the basic needs of life.
4. “Being homeless is being totally alone — bankrupt without hope.” [A quotation by Devine]
5. Many homeless people work or are trying to get work.
6. Some landlords and employers shut the door when they find out you are homeless, because of stereotypes and misperceptions.
7. More than 200,000 Mainers are food insecure. That is more than the total population of Maine’s five largest cities combined. Preble Street soup kitchen alone serves more than 1,200 meals every day.
8. “There is no dignity in dying in a shelter or on the streets. We all deserve the dignity of dying at home in peace.” [A quotation by longtime homeless advocate Steve Huston, who died in October]
9. Homeless services keep people alive.
10. Homelessness can happen to anyone. You can lose your job, your health, your marriage, your insurance, your house; the reasons are many, but any one of them can land you on the streets.
The hard truth that no one wants to hear.
Born and raised in Portland (1943), I recall no homelessness. What have we done or not done as a society? Are we pouring money into something that does not work; or does the system being used now only generate more homeless folks? I feel I have some answers, but will only be rejected.
The demise of the nuclear family.That is what is “wrong with society”.And the music today sucks too….
What! the progressives that rail against conservative hard truths are having second thoughts about the programs they love so dear.Or is it just hitting a little to close to home for them.As long as they are in someone Else’s backyard it is wonderful.I know, how about following the same path Maine did with the meth clinics.Send them to Bangor that way Portlanders can feel good and don’t have to live with the problems.
If the Waltons and the Kochs had their way, we would all be homeless and working for $1 an hour. No where in America has “free” trade hit any harder than in Maine. No where. Keep patronizing ChinaMart and listening to our Koch head-in-chief governor. That should help.
The “job creators” want us all to be just waiters!
Too bad the jobs they create are in China and the Cayman Islands.
BS!
When I left home to strike out on my own, there were hotels all across the country which would rent a room for $4 a night, or just under $100 a month. Since wages back then were in the neighborhood of $2.25 and hour, about a forth of your wages went for rent. Of course since this was a single room you got light and heat included. You could get the breakfast special for $.99, and the dinned (full meal) for $1.25.
Now during the time that has passed, the cost of food, energy, and housing has increased almost tenfold. That would mean that today an unskilled worker would have to make $22.50 an hour to live as well as I did back in the late sixties. I had fun, time off, and enjoyed the people I worked with. I never heard the word “homeless” unless someone was talking about kittens.
You can not run a society exclusively for those who attend college, where white collars, and work primarily with their heads, as opposed to their hands.
Homelessness symptom of a much larger problem. The larger problem being that we (as a society) have decided some folks are just not needed anymore.
My first job was cleaning chicken barns for $1.65 an hour in 1972. I was 12 years old and it was the nastiest work I have ever done. That money bought more than $15 an hour does these days. Wages are definitely not keeping pace with inflation.
So true. Today, all the money seems to be made at the very top. CEO’s that don’t perform get rewarded with huge “bonuses”, while hard working blue collar workers lose their longtime jobs overnight and get nothing in return. Wages for the average worker have been stagnant for far too long.
Greed and ambivalence Greed on the part of the top 1% and total ambivalence on the part of the other 99% of us.
Tux,they say that Tux cats are the smartest of all cats! Your point was well made and clear! Thanks!
Ever heard of these,
http://www.mmihouston.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/PODS2-1024×685.jpg
Your comment speaks also towards the ‘service oriented’ economy. We lost our manufacturing base. (actually it was sold to the overseas market) That is America’s roots.
Doesn’t matter what we do, unless we return to those roots we simply cannot support a nation such as America with a service oriented economy, it has barely lasted 25 years.
I’m going to be attacked for what I’m about to say, but it has to be said.
# 11. The homeless population percentage wise are under 50 years of age, druggies, drunks, criminals & the mentally ill, who along with their mental illness also happen to be druggies, drunks & criminals. That’s what makes up the homeless population Explosion in America.
While those truly homeless through no great fault of their own even falling under the slogan of s–t happens, find it very hard to break out of the cycle because so much time and precious resources are spent on the ‘revolving door’ of those mention above.
# 12. Homelessness in America along with soup kitchens are now the nations latest capital venture. Meaning those involved are making a comfortable living off of it.
# 13. While there is the extreme lack of affordable housing everywhere in the nation, we actually could provide that privacy, that personal space with a pod.
Yes, let’s give them more free stuff. That will teach them what life’s about. Handouts.
My. Name is Robert delrymple
My name is spelled delrymple not dalrymple