Tag Archives: homeless

The Road to Diamond, Day 89: Gift Bags

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 25, 2025- We ran out of razors and toothpaste first. Toothbrushes and shampoo were the last things left. Even so, 50 bags of toiletries were assembled by seven people, this afternoon. It’ll be a small contribution towards lessening the want and uncertainty that faces the homeless/unhoused community, each day of the week, in a great many cities and towns, across the nation and the globe.

Prescott and vicinity have a fair share of people with no permanent residence. There are various meal programs in several churches, in both Prescott and Prescott Valley. Shelters are available in both towns. Food banks tend to those who are worst off among the populace.

The situation may get worse, before righting itself, as the national governmental focus is on giving support to an entrepreneurial class, believing that this will ensure investment in the well-being of the less fortunate. There could be some of that, but if the last such effort (2017) is any indication, most of the money sent back to the wealthiest citizens by Congress will be invested in the things that make those citizens’ lives ever more comfortable.

So, we gather items for gift bags, support thrift stores and staff serving lines at soup kitchens and other feeding stations, around the planet. We alternately discourage people from begging, while imposing means testing as a way to separate the “worthy” from the grifter. The ranks of the unemployed may rise, due to the shake-out now going on at the Federal level. Will entrepreneurship rise to the challenge, and set a private enterprise hiring boom in motion?

It will take far more than gift bags and food pantries to get through this current set of challenges. Stay tuned.

The Road to 65, Mile 69: The East Parking Lot

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Posted by on in Social

February 5, 2015, Prescott-  I read something in the paper today about a major Men’s Overflow Shelter in Phoenix, which is closing.  It will be replaced by a new shelter, “later this year”.  In the meantime, people affected by this closure- all individuals with various social ills- will be “housed” in the parking lot adjacent to the condemned building.  It has Port-a- Potties, and lots of space, but no shade.

I had a brief experience, helping a transient man, during January.  He has a vehicle now, and so he has moved on.  Few such people get out of their dire straits so easily.The people in the situation mentioned above will likely find their ways to various city parks, libraries (a good place to get out of the heat, during regular library hours) and shopping malls.  Some even go to Indian casinos, where they can chow down on bar food, provided they’ve cleaned up a bit.

Homelessness does generate resourcefulness.  I had a brief experience with it in 1977, in the dead of a Bangor, ME winter, but there were a few couches on which to surf, and my car was large enough to hold all my possessions, at the time.  As luck would have it, I rented a room within three days of being evicted.  Said eviction, I found out later, was on false pretenses, but no matter.  I had a great experience with my new landlady and her family.

Every town has its homeless.  What is done with, and to, the unfortunates is a mirror of what the given community thinks of itself.  Utah, and some places in Idaho, offer mini-houses, rather than forcing people to congregate on the streets.  Portland has people sleeping in doorways of businesses.  Many merchants seem to regard the door minders as part of their business family, and let them use the restroom to sponge bathe and groom themselves, before the normal business hours begin.  In Arizona, we have shelters, which are often dependent on how cold the nights are, or how hot the days, as to when they are actually open.  Some Florida communities give their transients one-way bus tickets, out of town.  Hawaii has a few beaches which seem to be reserved for the homeless.  I read that Fairbanks had a major power outage at the University of Alaska, in -40 weather, so I shudder to think how people down on their luck would fare up there, with so many students needing in out of the Deep Freeze.

Parking lots, bridge undergirding, caves, forests, back alleys- it seems Utah has the better solution.