Posts by Diane Nilan
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Where Do Desperate Families Go?
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Signs: Real Jobs Needed NOW!
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Homeless and Freezing in Grand Junction
"It's Hard Being a Single Mother"
Published February 05, 2010 @ 10:00AM PT
I recently heard from a young woman I met when she was living on the streets of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She had a baby two years ago with a man she thought was her soulmate. He, like "Eva," preferred sleeping on benches to foster care. They both graduated high school while living on the streets and moved into "affordable housing" -- in this case, a nice way of saying "slums."
Life was good for awhile but, sadly and predictably, things fell apart, leaving Eva alone with her now two-year-old son. "It's hard being a single mother," she lamented, which got me thinking of the scads of single mothers I know.
Most find it horribly difficult. Child support enforcement, the cost of living expenses, health issues (autism, mental and physical illnesses), and barriers to transportation have worsened over the past decade for people living in poverty. Living wage jobs, quality post-high school education, decent child care and other safety net components are being cut in budget battles.
The Link Between House Fires and "Hard Times"
Published January 20, 2010 @ 10:08AM PT
A family having "hard times" (translation: homeless due to hardship) in Starkville, Mississippi was recently taken into the small apartment of India Williams, a 25-year-old mother of three who understood what "hard times" do to a family. Williams paid dearly for her kindness. On Monday, Dec. 28, in Starkville, a fire in that overcrowded apartment killed three women and six small children.
The fire that took their lives, sadly, is part of a nationwide house fire epidemic. The Red Cross reports a 200% jump in house fires, attributed mainly to an increase in impoverished and desperately cold households turning to unsafe methods to stay warm following utility shut-offs. The nationwide cold spell has only made things worse.
I've noticed an interesting, and revealing, phenomenon when it comes to news stories about these tragedies. "Hard times" and variations are common terms. The Tulsa World ran a story with the headline "Tough Times" describing poverty among families in the OK state. The Denver Post just ran a superb feature on Colorado childhood poverty focused on people "trying to get by."
"Hard times," "tough times," "trying to get by," are euphemisms for abject poverty and homelessness. I want to call it what it is so the clueless get a clue. Poverty's devastation is felt through all communities. It costs more to maintain poverty than it does to holistically address it.
'Affordable Housing'--Theory vs. Reality
Published December 04, 2009 @ 05:05AM PT
Sitting in a Sacramento Starbucks for respite from the cold--my RV generator not working and no electricity available at the moment--I'm forced to listen to holiday music. "Baby, it's cold outside..." which makes me think that it's cold inside too, especially for those in my temporary neighborhood this past weekend.
A 6' chain-link fence separated my RV from a pseudo-neighborhood. I've adapted to my fairly modest 27' mobile home/office/vehicle, adequate for my purposes, although claustrophobia strikes many visitors. I noticed that the "mobile home park" on the other side of the fence was comprised of dozens of camper-trailers even smaller, and much older, than my rig, with sounds of kids playing after school, meaning families live there. I could only shake my head, film and blog.
Click-Advocacy Begets Good Will and Change
Published November 27, 2009 @ 05:05AM PT
My travels this week found me camping in a sweet spot wedged between the seemingly infinite Pacific Ocean and a wide swath of California farmland. I ventured out for a pre-sunrise photography walk to capture colors and shadows as day broke over the field.
Nothing like a close-up view of agriculture to appreciate what sprouts from the land. Perusing my photographs, I paused at the image of artistically arranged rows—and saw portable toilets. I wondered what it took to “encourage” farm owners to provide basic sanitation facilities for workers. And that got me thinking, ADVOCATES!
Time for a Little Thanks
Published November 20, 2009 @ 05:08AM PT
With our national holiday of Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, I'd like to offer some therapeutic thoughts to counteract the ongoing bleak economic reality, including this recent and timely report about people suffering from hunger.
With health care dominating national news, I was delighted to read a positive story about a hospital administrator's approach to coping with their fiscal crisis. The Boston Globe reported that Paul Levy, the hospital CEO, walked around the hospital and made simple, but critical, observations.
He stood at the nurses' stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine.
He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families.
He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by.
Poverty--'Prison Without Bars'
Published November 13, 2009 @ 05:03AM PT
While I think I know something about poverty, I could never succinctly describe it as Dorothy Thomas did, "Poverty is prison without bars." Her homelessness probably galvanized her way of looking at her income-deficit disorder.
It just takes a glance at headlines to realize that our country suffers from economic schizophrenia. We've got a bazillionaire plunking down a cool $43.8 million for Warhol's painting of 200 $1 bills, and 237 of the 535 members of Congress counting up their millions, although hard times have hit a few...
The Center for Responsive Politics reports that a number of lawmakers are estimated to have suffered double-digit percentage losses in their net worth from 2007 to 2008. The biggest losers include Kerry, who lost a whopping $127.4 million; Warner lost about $28.1 million; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lost about $11.8 million; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost about $10.1 million.
Housing Instability Hurts Kids
Published November 06, 2009 @ 05:07AM PT
I'm tired of being subtle. In this world of attention-grabbing headlines and screaming issues, little kids are being trampled as crowds of media rush to cover "issues" which often have the importance of a mosquito bite, or um, a silver balloon. Left to fend for themselves are millions of little kids and their families in this country, mired in deep poverty, teetering on or swallowed up by homelessness.
So I made this 4-minute video, "Life is But a Dream," to remind viewers of the cost as we continue to abandon the wee ones in this country. Would be great if you view it and share it.
A new report issued by the Institute of Children in Poverty provides strong data to support my premise that little kids suffer by our national neglect. Among the findings...
Existing research provides a link between housing instability and a range of child and adolescent challenges, from lower school achievement to poorer social and emotional adjustment.
