I hate politics. I do. Politics always seem so complicated and I like things simple. Plus, to me, politics means “lots of talk and little action”. I’d rather just start working hard to make things better than to waste years arguing who is right or wrong. But obviously if you’re someone like me who gives their all to fight homelessness politics cannot be avoided.  That’s the case with the Community Care Facilities Ordinance.  Here I am minding my own business, just trying to build Invisible People while battling my own survival, and I start to hear all this chatter about some law that could hurt what little affordable housing we have now.

From what I understand Councilmember Mitchell Englander, representing 12th District Northwest San Fernando Valley, is proposing a citywide ordinance in an attempt to regulate sober living homes. But it looks like the ordinance is based on NIMBYism and may drastically reduce affordable housing for disabled, veterans, elderly, homeless, and other marginalized people.

Greg Spiegel, Director of Policy and Communications at Inner City Law Center, writes in a recent post:

the ordinance requires that in a neighborhood zoned for single family homes and duplexes a home can have only one lease.  If a home has two or more leases, such as where two families are sharing or where a person with disabilities is living in shared housing, the ordinance would categorize the home as a “boarding house.”  Under current law, boarding houses are prohibited in residential zones.  Thus, by categorizing all homes with multiple leases as boarding houses, the ordinance would eliminate shared housing in these residential zones.

The elimination of shared housing in residential zones would fall most heavily on people with disabilities for whom shared housing provides the best and most prevalent opportunity to live independently.  Over 250 units of government-subsidized shared housing for people with disabilities would be eliminated under this proposal.  By requiring that they be on only one lease, the ordinance either eliminates the housing (federal programs require separate leases for shared housing), or requires everyone who is sharing to be on one lease.  Putting everyone on one lease puts a family at the mercy of a total stranger –landlords could evict one tenant based on the behavior of the co-tenant.

The ordinance would also devastate working families.  In Los Angeles, over 43,000 families share housing in single family homes.  Families share to make housing more affordable, to live in safer neighborhoods and to allow their children to attend better schools. Much of that shared housing is in residential zones.  The proposed ordinance would eliminate this shared housing or require that they share one lease, making them vulnerable to eviction.

Point blank honest: That’s scary! Los Angeles is not alone having an affordable housing crisis, but rentals here are insane. Yes, you see construction all around the city that will soon have a sales sign “starting at $600,000″. Downtown I have seen rental signs for newly built condos starting at over a million dollars. My point is while all the new construction is to house all the rich people reducing affordable housing stock for us poor folk will cause a serious crisis throughout the city. Reducing what we need more of is just stupid!

Sober living homes are a crucial component to rehabilitating drug addicts and people getting out of prison. There is also a huge housing need for people who cannot qualify for SSI, yet for whatever reason are not employable. Sober living homes help in so many ways. We need more sober living type homes for people with low or no income. Most are great, but I have heard horror stories of our homeless friends being taken advantage of.  So I get it. The issue is needing to regulate sober living homes. But there may be a better solution. For example, the Orange Country Sheriff’s operate a sober living certificate program. Too me, we should look at something like that and avoid the costly court battle this Community Care Facilities Ordinance is headed.

To better help me understand the dynamics of all this I asked Kerry Morrison, executive director of Hollywood Business Improvement District, to record a short interview. I have crazy respect for Kerry. Obviously she comes from the business side, yet she is a true advocate for housing solutions in Los Angeles. Kerry championed Hollywood 4WRD, a program that has successfully housed  140 chronic homeless friends in the last two years. She is part of Home For Good‘s Business Task Force and was newly appointed by the mayor to be on the board for LAHSA .

If you live in Los Angeles please watch this important video. If you know someone who lives in Los Angeles please forward this video to them.

We can stop this! The United Way [disclosure: former client] has listed all of Los Angeles’s council member’s contact info along with a nifty tool to create a letter on this blog post. The office for Councilmember Englander twitter account is here and maybe he’s listening. Please be respectful, but please let Councilmember Englandar know how you feel about this insane ordinance that’s headed down a path to cost tax payers lots of money.  I will try and list other twitter and social media accounts ASAP.

Let’s face it. The economy still sucks. Finding employment is far from easy, and finding employment that offers a living wage for a homeless mom to pay for housing and childcare  is close to impossible. Oh, did I say ‘homeless’?!! As much as we all want to think people have a heart to do good, and I do believe many do, the truth is it is rare for an employer to even consider hiring a homeless person.

If you haven’t heard about Shaun Kings’s new project Hope Mob you probably are not on social media.  I think the world of Shaun. I know of no other person that is just a natural at building community. I have seen Hope Mob explode even before it was launched and I believe Hope Mob will continue to grow it’s influence to help people.

As many of you know Carey Fuller  is a homeless mom who manages our We Are Visible  community while living in a van near Seattle. I was first introduced to Carey by a post she anonymously wrote What It’s Like To Be a Homeless Mother. I begged the editor to introduce me, which she did. I sent Carey an email but she didn’t respond. She told me later she was hoping I would go away.  At the time, she was not ready to go public about her homelessness.  I helped her build a blog and showed her a few social media tricks.  But the work and the growth was all hers. The first time I met Carey in person she joined me on stage in New York City for 140 Conference. This last year I was able to drive up and spend some time with Carey and her daughters. It was a life-changing experience for me. Not sure if I ever felt my heart hurt as much as the night I followed them to the place where they sleep at night.

Hope Mob is featuring Carey this week in the hopes of getting her three job interviews that would provide a living wage. I have been working with homeless people for a long time, but it was Carey who taught me about the issues of childcare for homeless families. Unfortunately, there are a lot of homeless families in the very same situation as Carey. We currently live in  a country were minimum wage is not enough to pay for housing, much less cover a babysitter so you can go to that minimum wage job. Yesterday, a Seattle TV station drove to Carey and did a live interview. You can watch the powerful video here.

Since I met Carey I have been trying to help her best I can. She has gone to every job interview I have been able to arrange for her. I know behind the scenes she works hard to better her life and the life for her girls. When I first put her story on Huffington Post  several people responded that Carey wanted to be homeless saying that she could find the support needed.  The week before I gave Carey a video camera and she documented system failures, and what it’s like for a homeless mom to try and find help.  Shortly after she made another video of trying to get childcare to go to a minimum wage job interview she would not be able to accept because the job would not pay enough for childcare.  It’s easy to judge Carey’s life from a distance, but it’s not so easy to be a homeless mom.

People who follow Carey see her tweeting about helping homeless youth. I will often get an email or text from people saying Carey needs to spend that time looking for a job. First, I know Carey does still look for work. Just because she’s not sharing it on social media doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Plus, have you been unemployed and looked, and looked, and looked, and looked, and looked for work with no luck? I have. It’s part of the reason Invisible People was started. I was at nineteen months of unemployment. I am a very assertive person so you can only imagine how many applications filled out and interviews I had in that time. I could not fill out another application. I was going crazy with depression and instead of sitting on my couch crying I decided to go outside and start helping others.  Over the last year or so Carey has filled her life by caring for her daughters first, and then doing whatever she can to help the other homeless people she meets.

More than anything I want Carey and her daughters in housing. More than anything I would love to see Carey find a job working with homeless youth because that is where her heart is. She is also good at writing, blogging and social media. A remote social media community manager job would give her an income while working from home reducing the need for childcare.  Maybe someone could help Carey start a nonprofit called “Carey’s Kids” so Carey can have more impact helping homeless youth. If it was a perfect world I wish I could hire Carey myself. But I work a job at a homeless shelter to pay for food and rent. I help Carey with her phone bill and others needs when I can. I often get frustrated that I cannot do more.

The reason I started Invisible People was to “make everyone known”.  People have been ignoring the issues of homelessness for far too long. I believe that once you know someone, and have a personal connection to their story, it’s not so easy to walk on by. Will Shaun King and Hope Mob be able to get Carey a job and a place to stay? Well, homelessness is a complicated issue. It may not be that easy. But if anyone can do it YOU can, and YOU are the power of Hope Mob. Shaun committed to make Carey’s life better and already that has happened. A lot more people know Carey now and that betters the chance of a real miracle happening. KIRO TV7′s live interview with a homeless mom yesterday made history and did volumes to help break stereotypes of homelessness.

I am so grateful to Shaun for featuring a homeless mom. Homelessness is not sexy unless it’s Thanksgiving.  Shaun and the Hope Mob team rock for taking such a risk. If you are connected to Seattle’s homeless services in any way PLEASE HIRE CAREY as an outreach case manager.  If you are connected to Seattle’s social media and tech industry please consider giving a homeless mom a chance. If you are looking for a social media community manager and that position can be remote PLEASE HIRE CAREY. Anyone can learn social media tools, but not everyone can make people smile via social media like Carey can. One of the best things I have ever done was make her admin of our Facebook community. Carey is smart, responsible and teachable. If you know of any open position near Kent, Washington that could pay enough for rent and childcare, Carey may be your next employee of the year.

Somehow, Carey will get housed. It is going to happen! With all the attention someone, somewhere,  has to be able to help! We must also remember there are many homeless families. We must continue to fight homelessness and poverty, especially at the local level. No man, woman or child should have to sleep without adequate housing! It is just unacceptable that anyone in this country not have enough income to afford housing! With your help we can change that – one person and one family at a time!

THANK YOU Shaun King and everyone connected to Hope Mop. You are all my heroes!

The first time I learned about motivational interviewing was when I was first introduced to Ken Kraybill a few years back at a 100,000 Homes leadership meeting. Ken directs the Center for Social Innovation‘s training activities, and is co-director of t3, an innovative new training institute for homeless service providers.

We’ve all known people we want to help, but for whatever reason, that person just wants to stay where they are at. As a case manager in homeless services, I often have clients that are on a path of self-destruction and there does not seem like anything in our universe can change their destructive path. This is where learning motivational interviewing is a must for everyone working in social services. Simply put, motivational interviewing is a way of talking to people that encourages their own motivation to want change, instead of our motivation to get the other person to change. We all know you cannot change a person unless they want to change. Motivational interviewing helps people see change from their own perspective.

t3 offers online courses to help your case management team learn skills like motivational interviewing at a very reasonable cost. I have taken the motivational interviewing course and I strongly recommend you and your staff do the same. I am still at the practicing stage, though. I’ve been trying to get Ken to use twitter because I want to learn more from him, but I am having no luck. Oh, maybe it’s because I am still relying on my motivation not his.  Hmmm, how can we use motivational interviewing to see more tweets from Ken?

About a month ago I was speaking at the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference when this nicely dressed white man raised his hand and asked me about black people using social media. Turns out Bevan Dufty has been asking lots of folks in the San Francisco tech community “where’s our black friends?”. Bevan holds the job that most communities refer to as “homeless czar”, but Mr Dufty wanted a title that was a little more encouraging so he asked the Mayor to be Director of H.O.P.E. (Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement) for the City of San Francisco. As many of you know I am at war with the use of acronyms. We have more than enough nonprofits with PATH in the title, and honestly, I have no idea what all these acronyms mean when I sit in meetings. But I support Director of H.O.P.E mostly because Bevan Dufty gives me real hope San Francisco will soon have great impact fighting homelessness.

Bevan heard I was going to be in town and invited me to tag along with him for two days. It was truly an honor, although Mr Dufty didn’t tell me in advance he scheduled me to speak at a homeless board meeting and then TRANS: THRIVE. He even tried to get me to speak at a shelter system hearing.  But that is all just part of the Bevan Dufty whirlwind experience.

In a very short time I learned to respect Bevan. I seem to migrate to people who have the courage to be honest at all times, and Bevan is himself – always! Bevan is so much fun to hang out with, and so refreshingly honest, I forget he’s a politician. (some say he’ll be the next mayor)

Bevan has only held this new position for about seven weeks, but I believe he was destined for this job. A few year’s back Bevan was behind San Francisco’s library hiring social workers to help our homeless friends. A move that I was hoping more communities would adopt. Although you may be able to say Bevan is technology challenged (he did get off a tweet while visiting Twitter, Inc with me)  he understands technology can help save lives and save tax payer money! San Francisco has some unique challenges when trying to help our homeless friends. In my two days there I could see layers upon layers of bureaucracy and bureaucracy kills people. Bevan and the City of San Francisco have a long battle ahead.

One of the many things we agree on is education of marginalized people. Many programs teach low or no income people to wash dishes or similar minimum wage jobs, but with San Fransisco’s tech community, it should be easy to start teaching people computer science. I was really excited to help Bevan connect with some of the tech communities and even more excited of the possibilities to affect positive change.

If you live and work in San Francisco please support Bevan Dufty. He has a lot of work to do and with your help we can save lives and save money.

A very special thanks to both Twitter, Inc and Google for taking the time to speak with us.

“I don’t care who you worship or what you believe. I don’t care who you sleep with. If you are helping hurting people, you’re my friend and I will support you”. ~ Mark Horvath

Homelessness is a critical issue for transgender people, with one in five having experienced homelessness at some time in their lives because of discrimination and family rejection. As a result, an estimated 20-40% of the more than 1.6 million homeless youth in the United States are LGBT. Unfortunately, transgender people facing homelessness also face discrimination from agencies that should be helping them, with nearly one in three (29%) reporting being turned away from a shelter due to their transgender status.

As many of you know I love and support any group of people that are discriminated against and that are not given the same opportunities the rest of us take for granted. When I started to work with homeless people, and really started to research homelessness, my heart just broke for our LGBT friends. As a Christian, I blogged about why I support gay rights a few times [ My new gay friend and Why I Support Gay Rights]. Too me, it’s a human rights issue. I get so mad when I hear how many of our LGBT friends are treated just because they are trying to be themselves! We are all HUMAN and we should treat all other humans with respect. Sadly, that is not the case. More often than not a transgender person is forced into sex work as the only means to survive. Often that leads to jail, which leads to homelessness. Once homeless, LGBT are discriminated by other homeless people and staff at homeless shelters.

This past week I was honored to be asked to speak at TRANS: THRIVE. I didn’t know I was to speak until I arrived and Erin introduced me to a room of maybe 20 new transgender friends. Being candid, I didn’t know what to say. There is no way I could even fathom the pain and suffering each one of my new friends experiences on a daily basis. I said a few words of why I was there, and explained my work. I then asked for the room to teach me about transgender homelessness.

What happened next was gorgeous. I mean, I think it’s gorgeous when any group of people take off the masks and become intentionally vulnerable. The stories I heard that day forever changed me. I knew of the discrimination, but this was my first time listening to people share how they were abused and what they had to do everyday  to survive.

The following interview is with Nikki “Tita Aida” Calma, Program Supervisor:

The following interview is with Erin Armstrong. Erin is the program coordinator for TRANS: THRIVE and also video blogs under the name Grishno. I have huge crazy respect for Erin. It’s not easy video blogging period, but Erin has decided to use YouTube as an activist tool somewhat like what I do to fight homelessness.

I am grateful to TRANS: THRIVE for allowing me to join their community for a few hours. As you saw I cried in the videos, I cried that night, and I get emotional every time I think about the wonderful people I met that day. Many of the women were homeless and many survive by working the streets. I admire their strength and the courage it took for them to allow a stranger into their world. If we are ever going to truly end homelessness we must embrace the LGBT community.  I am not asking you to understand, I am simply asking you to have compassion for all the wonderful people in this world!

NO ONE should be forced into a life of prostitution simply to get some food, and NO ONE should be homeless!

A little over three years ago Alan Graham “talked” me into visiting Austin, Texas because he knew what he was doing to help our homeless friends was so awesome I’d become an evangelist for his work. He was right, and every since that visit, I have been telling everyone about his catering trucks and how he rapid houses homeless people in RVs.

Well Alan is at it again, this time trying to create ways for our homeless friends to generate income. Unfortunately, Mobile Loaves and Fishes new Street Treats program was drowned out by the madness that surrounded Homeless Hotspots because it’s even cooler (ice cream pun intended).

Basically, Alan empowers a homeless person to make some money, with the intent to save up and restore housing, by selling ice cream around downtown Austin.

I think it’s a brilliant idea and I hope other communities will come up with unique ways to employ our homeless friends in our down economy.

Please follow @StreetTreatsATX so the next time you’re in Austin you can find a Street Treat vendor and get some ice cream while supporting a great cause.

By now you all have heard about the Homeless Hotspot controversy. Today I was asked to join a conversation about the homeless hotspots with Sean Condon, Board Vice President, Co-chair, North American Street Newspaper Association; Executive Director of Megaphone, a magazine sold on the streets of Vancouver by homeless and low-income vendors and Rabbi Marvin Gross, CEO, Union Station Homeless Services.

This was by far the best conversation I have heard about the homeless hotspot and the media drama surrounding it. Please take a moment and listen to this interview:

 Using the homeless as Wi-Fi hotspots

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link to KPCC’s original post

We’ve all been panhandled by a homeless person on street begging for money. I bet every one of you reading this has even been aggressively panhandled. It’s awkward to be walking with your friends on a nice summer night just to have a homeless person rush you for money. Or maybe the light just turned red and you didn’t make it through the intersection. Right in front of your car is a homeless person “flying a sign”. You try not to make eye contact but the homeless man walks up to your window so you start praying the light turns green.  Unfortunately,  that’s how the general public interacts with homelessness. The experience is always uncomfortable and often nasty, and it reinforces wrong stereotypes about our homeless neighbors.

That’s why I like the street paper model and believe every community should have a street paper. I didn’t at first. Street papers can sometimes be billed as a way for a homeless person to get off the streets. I always thought that was farfetched.  I mean,  street paper vendor’s, after paying for the papers to sell, cannot make a living wage. But then it hit me. I saw the true benefit.  Street papers provide a positive interaction between a homeless vendor and the general public.

The creative team at BBH Labs wanted to do something a little different at this year’s SXSW.  Something that would not only help the city of Austin but give back to a mostly forgotten group of people. They partnered with the local homeless shelter, built a neat little webpage, bought a few Mifis with service, and then empowered a few homeless folks to sell “pay what you wish” WiFi service around downtown Austin. The Homeless Hotspot webpage that BBH created (at their own expense) helps tell each homeless vendor’s story and provides a way for people to donate directly to the homeless vendor! That’s right. 100% of the money goes directly to the vendor. Like that’s not enough, BBH also made a sizable donation to Front Steps.

When I first heard about the “Homeless Hotspots” I freaked out in the good way. I think the idea is brilliant, and it’s a new idea in a nonprofit sector that is void of any new ideas, especially in tech. I am a realist so I immediately thought of a few flaws like how could this be scaled, and that people won’t stand around on a sidewalk to get WiFi. But what really got me excited is WHAT ELSE COULD WE DO? Seriously, I don’t see homeless hotspots as any kind of solution, but it may be the catalyst to an idea that will be a solution. What I mean by that is for a very long time all we have had is street papers. I know some places like Dignity Village in Portland (a city sanctioned tent community) has hotdog and espresso carts, and my friend Alan Graham just launched Street Treats in Austin, but what could we do with technology to create a positive interaction with homeless friends and the general public.

In today’s world we have refrigerators that can check our Twitter and Facebook status. Tech is changing everything we do and tech itself is changing faster and faster. But not in homeless services! Think about it, you can book a vacant hotel room from any computer with online access in the world, yet a homeless mom cannot find a shelter that does not have a waiting list. Homeless families and homeless people get turned away from shelter after shelter until they finally give up.  The homeless services system is like out of the dark ages so no wonder people cannot find the help they need. Technology can change that. It has for you and me, but not homeless people. Although I don’t see Homeless Hotspots being adopted by homeless services I sure hope it kicks a few people in the ass so they start thinking about how technology can help us save lives and money.

What happened with online media the last 12 hours is disgusting. New York Times, Read Write Web, Wired, and many others grabbed on to some negative spin without doing any real research. I believe it was conscious since everyone knows SXSW is the biggest dog and pony show of the year and controversy drives traffic. I won’t link to the posts because they already have more than enough traffic by being irresponsible. They’re not getting any from me.  It was just stupid drama. People were even complaining about choice of verbs written on the shirts. I will give some props to Jon Mitchell who wrote the Read Write Web post. After a healthy conversation on twitter he updated the post with the “other” side of the story, and today I see he kept his word and went and interviewed a “hotspot vendor”! I know blogging isn’t journalism but truth is better than spin. Can we please stop creating drama for traffic?!!

If you have never been to SXSW it’s like a giant circus of gimmicks. It seems like big brands and marketing/PR firms all try and outdo each other. It’s common to see people in strange outfits handing out handbills throughout downtown Austin.  Much of it is way over the top. For the last three years I have been honored by an invite to speak, and in all of those three years I have never seen any SXSW campaign give back to the city of Austin. Not one! Instead of criticizing the one agency that at least tried to help we should be putting pressure on all the others that spent huge amounts of money and gave nothing back!

Point blank honest here: I strongly believe we can change the world tomorrow by being socially conscious about what we buy today. We have all the power to change the world in what we purchase. Big brands can help end homelessness, but controversy like what’s happening with Homeless Hotspots scares the heck out of executives. In addition, homeless services needs help. We need fresh and creative ideas to help save lives and save money. Any brand, marketing agency, or Girl Scout Troupe that takes real tangible action to help solve a social crisis should be rewarded not slammed. What BBH Labs did with Homeless Hotspots is a harmless and fun idea that provides a positive interaction between homeless people and the rest of you. Plus, our homeless friends made a few bucks. And even more important – they were given self-worth. Unless you were on the streets you have no idea how low ones self-esteem gets. The number one thing you can give another person is your attention and the Homeless Hotspot vendors at SXSW got lots of that. Every one I met was smiling ear to ear.

The controversy that started right after a week of Invisible Children madness has me wondering if social media has turned us into whiny complainers. Everyone who complained has no connection to homeless services. Heck, the title of this post came from a homeless mom I was explaining the hotspots to and she said “sure beats panhandling”! Seriously, don’t we all have much better things to do than complain about the words on a shirt? Of course I get it. Like I wrote earlier controversy drives traffic, and what happened the last 12 hours was really a bunch of interactive geeks having a spit fight to get attention.

We have enough drama and negativity in this world. Instead of criticizing those that are doing good go out and do good yourself. Besides, instead of slamming homeless hotspots for trying to do good we all should be criticizing that no one in this presidential election has even mentioned homelessness!

This post is long overdue. A few years back, on my first national road trip, I connected with Indianapolis School on Wheels or @IndySOW on twitter. I love the School on Wheels program and I was impressed by IndySOW’s use of social media. They invited me to stop by but because my schedule was already filled with hard dates I could not make it happen. Well, when planning this last year I made sure a visit to Indianapolis School on Wheels was a sure thing.

Indianapolis School on Wheels provides educational help to homeless students in 10 shelters and 2 schools. They provide uniforms and a backpack filled with school supplies.

The day I was visiting IndySOW was at Dayspring Center, an emergency shelter for homeless families. In this interview, Cheryl Herzog, development coordinator for Dayspring Center, talks about how homelessness has changed. In the past, when families became homeless, all they need was a little support to get back on their feet. Today things are much different. Families are becoming homeless without any support system to get them out of homelessness.

I cannot stress enough how important programs like School on Wheels are to our growing population of homeless families with young children. If you are in or near Indianapolis please support IndySOW. For other parts of the country please support your local School on Wheels. They are always needing quality volunteers to help tutor young kids in homeless shelters. I received an email last week from School on Wheels here in Southern California and they are in desperate need of quality volunteers. For more info visit their website here.

National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness

Welcome Remarks: Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County Supervisor, 3rd District

Keynote Address: Nan Roman, President and CEO, National Alliance to End Homelessness