#or a homeless shelter

[richieshusband]

me, joking to my science teacher: yeah when I graduate I’m going to a homeless shelter

science teacher, who knows that my mom has been threatening to send me to homeless shelters, kicking me out on the streets, and sending me to a mental hospital ever since I was like 5 years old: Remy that’s really disrespectful to your parents I’m sure they love you

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #90

Jason was frustrated with life, of course he was a revenant without a way to get revenge with Bruce’s no kill rule. Doesn’t say he can’t get others to kill for him, so when he gets captured by cultists he decides to take a leap of faith and make his wish to the Ghost King before the cultists can make their stupid wish about world domination or something.

The Ghost King accepts but wants a favor from him, what Jason wasn’t expecting was a kid with black hair blue eyes about 14, showing up on his doorstep saying he needed a place to crash and this was the ghost kings favor. Jason gets a message from his family just then, the Joker is confirmed dead. He doesn’t know why the Ghost King wants him to take care of a random teen but a deal is a deal.

[br1ghtestlight]

whenever ppl talk about the contestant sleeping arrangements i just think about that one tumblr post that was like Why would they confirm that the ii contestants prefer sleeping in normal beds but mephone makes them sleep outside on the wet grass like dogs when they're in competition why would they show us that. THATS LITERALLY ALL I THINK ABOUT NOW like what is this bro?????

i dont even blame mephone cuz 1. we know he ALSO sleeps outside on the sad wet soggy grass outside with the contestants like a dog without an owner and he never had a real bed to sleep in 2. he probably didn't even think about it until hotel oj was created

but it's so sad cuz the contestants had NEVER slept in a bed before. we know they had no lives before the competition like imagine how much chronic back pain they have as a collective!!!!! theyve been sleeping on the COLD HARD GROUND!!!!!!!

[posmasc]

So about a month ago, there was this protest against a all male homeless shelter in brooklyn

that planned to be built near schools. Is is feminist to protest against it or classist/anti homeless. There were definitely some classist people in the protest so even if there was a valid reason to be against the homeless shelter, allying with conservatives is a bit of a yikes. Here the view against the home

Classists - Homeless Shelters shouldn't be built because they don't like homeless people.(These people were part of the protest)

(Rad) Feminists - Homeless Shelter isn't the issue to them but moreso the location. They believe that Homeless Men are likely to be a threat to children and to protect children, the homeless shelter must be moved elsewhere.

I wonder if an all female homeless shelter near children would be protested as well. Maybe the argument that Women are less likely to be violent towards children is enough for the public to trust an all female homeless shelter near kids.

Pro Shelter - Any help towards ending homelessness is good and this service is necessary.

What do you guys think?

[genderqueerdykes]

sooooo tired of reading reviews for places that say "this place is wonderful, i hope the homeless don't ruin it!" like hey if you don't want them in there help give them homes!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!

[newsfromstolenland]

The Toronto ombudsman released a report Thursday finding that the city's decision to limit refugees' access to shelter beds for several months last year was anti-Black racism — but the city manager said he does not agree with the report.

The decision to stop allowing refugees access to non-refugee shelter beds was "poorly thought out, planned for, and communicated," Ombudsman Kwame Addo wrote in the report, which includes 14 recommendations for the city.

But in a letter to Addo dated Nov. 26, City Manager Paul Johnson said he would not take action on the recommendations, subject to city council's decision on the report.

"I do not agree with the findings," Johnson wrote.

Johnson's letter marks "the first time in the history of the Ombudsman's office that the Toronto Public Service has rejected my findings and recommendations in their entirety," Addo wrote in his report.

In November 2022, the city decided to stop allowing refugee claimants access to general shelter system beds, the report says.

Full article

So to be clear, Kwame Addo, the Toronto ombudsman, reported (correctly) that this decision to refuse access to city shelters for homeless refugees disproportionately impacted Black refugees and left many of them out on the street, and is a pretty clear case of anti-Black racism and targeted xenophobia. AND he gave recommendations on how to do better.

And our asshole city manager Paul Johnson (whiteass name) just went "No, I'm not gonna accept that fact".

Which is... just deciding that something isn't true because he doesn't like how it looks and doesn't want to acknowledge systemic anti-Black racism.

I fucking hate this shit man. There is no excuse for refusing shelter to people who need it. Let alone refusing shelter to refugees specifically!! And the fact that this disproportionately impacts Black refugees is just that- a fact. Not an opinion that you can just disagree with.

Discarding this report and its recommendations is cold-hearted and further proof that white canadians continue to be anti-Black.

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[aceofstars0]

Favorite thing about the rise in indie animation is the sheer amount of it that's horror, and filled with dark themes. I don't *remember* the last time I saw a trailer for an original movie by a Big Company™, meanwhile I can name like 7 indie shows that do what the big brands truly could never. It's beautiful and I really missed it. The multi-month wait between episodes always feels worth it cuz the quality is always so high

[romnticist]

the way she was eating him up and he was just giggling away…

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. In Chicago, all city buildings now use 100 percent clean power

“As of January 1, every single one of [Chicago’s municipal buildings] — including 98 fire stations, two international airports, and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — is running on renewable energy, thanks largely to Illinois’ newest and largest solar farm.”

2. California Rice Fields Offer Threatened Migratory Waterbirds a Lifeline

“Cranes need nighttime roosting sites flooded to a depth of about 3 to 9 inches, so they can easily hear or feel predators moving through the water. [... Bird Returns pays] farmers to flood their fields during critical migration periods [... and] provide foraging sites by leaving harvested rice or corn fields untilled, so cranes can access the leftover grain.”

3. New York Climate Superfund Becomes Law

“[Funds recovered “from major oil and gas companies” will be used to pay for] the restoration of stormwater drainage and sewage treatment systems, upgrades to transit systems, roads and bridges, the installation of green spaces to mitigate city heat islands and even medical coverage and preventative health programs for illnesses and injuries induced by climate change.”

4. Austin says retooled process for opening overnight cold-weather shelters is paying off

“[... T]he city's moves to lower the temperature threshold to open shelters and announce their activation at least a day in advance were the result of community feedback. [Shelter operators also passed out hot food.]”

5. Helping Communities Find Funding for Nature-Based Solutions

““From coastal oyster reefs to urban stormwater greenways, nature-based solutions are becoming the new normal.” That’s because these types of projects are often less expensive to build and have additional community benefits, such as improving water quality or creating parkland.”

6. Saving the Iberian lynx: How humans rescued this rare feline from extinction

“Back in the early 2000s, fewer than 100 individuals roamed the wild, including only 25 reproductive females. [...] Conservation staff [...] shape these cats into resourceful hunters and get them ready for life outside the center. [...] They’re fine-tuning captive-breeding routines, improving veterinary procedures, and pushing for more wildlife corridors.”

7. Biden cancels student loans for 150,000 more borrowers

“The 150,000 new beneficiaries announced Monday include more than 80,000 borrowers who were cheated or defrauded by their schools, over 60,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities and more than 6,000 public service workers[...] bringing the number whose student debt has been canceled during [Biden’s] administration to over 5 million[....]”

8. PosiGen wins another $200M for lower-income rooftop solar

“PosiGen offers a ​“no credit check” [solar panel installation to] those with a higher percentage of their income going to power and fuel bills[....] “somewhere between 25 and 75 percent” of the consumer’s monthly energy savings could come from efficiency measures such as sealing heating and cooling leaks, replacing thermostats, and installing LED lights[....]”

9. Indigenous communities come together to protect the Colombian Amazon

“At this year’s COP, Indigenous peoples celebrated the [protection of] traditional knowledge, innovations and practices[... and] the Cali Fund, which ensures that communities, including Indigenous peoples, receive benefits from the commercial use of [...] genetic data derived from the biological resources that they have long stewarded.”

10. How the heartland of Poland’s coal industry is ditching fossil fuels - without sacrificing jobs

“[Katowice, a former coal city] committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990, prioritising investments in green infrastructure, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. [...”]The gradual departure from heavy industry did not bring high social costs in our city,” says Marcin Krupa, Mayor of Katowice City.”

January 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[allthecanadianpolitics]

When Job Gori moved to Canada from Kenya a year ago, he spent his first night in the country sleeping in a Toronto park.  "I came here knowing nobody," Gori said. After sleeping in an encampment at Allan Gardens, the 23-year-old then secured a bed at Covenant House Toronto as part of its youth winter respite program. The agency serves Toronto youth who are unhoused, trafficked or at risk.  Covenant House Toronto's winter respite program, which officially launched on Friday for its third season, is meant to give people aged 16 to 24 a warm place to stay in winter. It operates around the clock and will run until April.

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[stillarandom-radfem]

I said this once on my old account, and I'm going to say it again: even if a TiM in a women's shelter isn't actively misbehaving towards the women in the shelter (and momentarily ignoring the fact, of course, that many of them do), by being there, he is still taking a bed away from actual biological women who have nowhere else to go. About 99% of biological women who are homeless become so due to domestic violence, and going back home could mean death for them. Meanwhile, most TiMs have experienced a male puberty, and could more than handle themselves in a male shelter. Yes, even TiMs who are on cross-sex hormones and have had cosmetic surgeries in hopes of "passing" as a woman. You are still significantly physically stronger than most women are; you'll be fine in the men's shelter. And, if they feel that there aren't enough shelters for guys, or that they want ones explicitly for trans people, they can always go out and build them. You know, like women did for ours? It's not our sex's job to compensate you with our beds and shelters that we took the time and effort specifically to set aside for ourselves. Not when our lives are on the line, and the only thing you risk injuring is your ego. That's not our problem. You deal with it, and then go find a bed at a men's shelter. No, I am not sorry for you. Go cry to someone who cares.

[lapdogchase]

i do not trust people who shop at shein i'm sorry like there's no excuse for it. i can understand amazon, i can understand a lot of fast fashion, but shein is uniquely awful. and their clothes fall apart in a week so you can't even keep them and mend them. "but i'm poor" okay and you don't need to buy from shein about it. "they sell shirts for $3" so does michael's check ur local craft store and make a design urself if u want. you cannot seriously tell me that you had no other option other than shein

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why are so many Californians homeless?

12% of Americans live in California — but 30% of homeless Americans, and 50% of unsheltered Americans, call California “home.” This is the source of endless schadenfreude from “red state” partisans, and is often waved as proof of the failure of liberal policies. But the real story is both more complicated — and simpler.

UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative’s “California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness” is the largest, best study of homelessness in California in some 30 years:

https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness

Between Oct 2021 and Nov 2022, researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,198 people, and conducted in-depth interviews with 365 more. They concluded that, contrary to popular folk-stories about “homeless migration” by out-of-staters seeking an easy life on California’s streets, “people experiencing homelessness in California are Californian.” Nine tenths of respondents were already living in California when they lost their housing.

It’s also not true that homeless people move to LA or San Francisco from out of town: three quarters of participants live in the same county they were living in when they lost their homes.

So California’s unsheltered and homeless people are Californians. They’re our neighbors. They are disproportionately racialized — 26% are Black, 12% are First Nations, and 35% are Latino. They are older: their median age is 47. They’ve been homeless for a long, long time: the median duration of homelessness is 22 months, and 36% of respondents were “chronically homeless.”

They are survivors of violence: 72% of them have experienced violent assaults in their lives; 24% have experienced sexual violence (that number goes up to 43% for cis women, and 74% for trans and nonbinary people).

They’re sick. 60% have a chronic illness. More than a third have some health condition that limits their daily living. 22% have a mobility limitation.

They’re also pregnant. A quarter of the participants who were assigned female at birth had been pregnant during their current episode of homelessness.

66% are experiencing mental illness. 48% have serious depression, 51% have anxiety, 37% have trouble concentrating, and 12% experience hallucinations.

Only 9% have received any mental health counseling.

They take drugs — but at fairly low levels. 31% take meth regularly. 11% take opioids. 16% binge drink.

They are in trouble with the law and also at risk of being victims of criminal violence. A third have been to jail at least once during their current homeless episode. 38% have been assaulted while homeless (10% of homeless people surveyed experienced sexual violence).

So how did they end up homeless? It’s depressingly easy.

It starts with getting evicted. For leaseholders in the survey, the median amount of notice they had that they would lose their homes is ten days. For non-leaseholders, the median amount of notice was less than one day.

Homeless people are poor before they become homeless. Many people’s last home was a “non-leaseholder” arrangement — they were people who lost their rented homes and moved in with family or friends. For these people, the median wage in the six months before they lost their homes was $950/month. While 43% of non-leaseholders weren’t paying any rent, the remainder were paying a median rent of $450/month. Non-leaseholders have no legal rights, and often lived in “substandard and overcrowded conditions.”

For leaseholders, the median monthly income before losing their homes was $1400/month — but their median rent was $700/month.

When a leaseholder loses their home, the cause is usually economic — they can’t afford the rent. When a non-leaseholder loses their home, the cause is usually social — a conflict within the home or “not wanting to impose.”

People about to lose their homes turn to family and friends for help, but not for-profit or government agencies devoted to helping people in their situation. 70% of survey respondents believed they could have avoided homeless with a one-time cash payment of $5,000-$10,000. 90% say a Housing Choice Voucher would have kept them from becoming homeless.

20% of people who become homeless say it was because they lost some or all of their income — often because their car broke down or got towed and they could no longer get to work. Once homeless, most survey respondents seek work — but are unable to find it, due to age, lack of transportation, disability and lack of housing.

What can we do about this? 90% of respondents say the biggest barrier to finding a home is housing costs. Half say their bad credit makes it even harder to find a rental, while a third say their criminal records also get in the way. Half also say that all the affordable housing is unsafe, or too far from their communities or care providers.

The authors have a suite of policy recommendations. For starters, we can increase homelessness prevention by giving financial support and legal aid to people facing eviction. These can be offered at “service settings” like domestic violence services, and at “institutional exits” from jail and prison. We can also make it harder to evict people.

We can expand “low barrier” access to mental heath and addiction care. We can offer training and transportation support to people in precarious economic situations, as well as help in navigating the process to get benefits.

We can offer more services to people in unsheltered settings, and embrace a racial equity approach that recognizes the racialized nature of homelessness.

And finally: we can increase the availability of housing vouchers, and the stock of affordable housing.

This last one is long overdue. America treats housing as an asset rather than a human right, creating a world of haves and have-nots. The haves are dedicated to increasing the value of their assets by restricting the supply, and by reducing the protections offered to tenants (the more a landlord can extract from tenants, the more all houses are worth, because every time one goes up for sale the bidding includes landlords who are factoring in their ability to milk flush tenants and evict broke ones):

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

In California, the meager supply of low-income housing has been gobbled up by Airbnb, and also by unscrupulous landlords who illegally convert their low-income housing into boutique hotels, with no fear of punishment from toothless, gutless enforcers:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-la-failed-stop-landlords-turning-low-cost-housing-hotels

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/12/because-its-too-expensive/#rents-too-damned-high

[Image ID: A homeless person's tent under a freeway underpass. From it emerges the bear from the California state flag.]

Image: Wonderlane (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/71401718@N00/34328251571

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[columboscreens]

[newyorkthegoldenage]

An unidentified man, a newspaper over his head, sleeps on a cot at the Doyer Street Mission, January 21, 1941.

Photo: Weegee via Int'l Center of Photography/Getty Images/Insider

[socialjusticeinamerica]

You can donate as much or as little as you choose. I’ve been giving what little I can to feed the people of Los Angeles during the wildfires, Ukrainians suffering from the brutal Russian invasion, and the citizens of Gaza.

You don’t have to send money to any charity. You can take your old clothes to your local homeless shelter. If you stay in hotels the little sealed bars of soap and shampoo can be dropped off at homeless shelters. You can just volunteer your time at any of a million charities or neighborhood projects.

Our neighbors in Mexico and Canada have sent firefighters to Los Angeles while the Republicans and their evangelical puppets send nothing. All of Trump’s cruel stooges are saying they’re going to cut off federal aid to California because it costs too much. It actually costs a fraction of the hurricane relief sent to Florida and Texas alone. Not too forget the other red states perpetually plagued by hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, etc.

With relief aid about to be cut off by Trump and the Republican Congress soon it is more important than ever for us to try and pick up the slack anyway we can to whoever needs it.