Her only housing option: a car

[KBCraig]

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/crimreport/pressrelease.html
20 Meanest Cities:
...
20. Manchester, New Hampshire

There is a downtown bus station (now called a "welcome center") that has an overhang roof. On bad weather days many of the homeless people gather there on park benches. These benches have now been removed. Ironically, the park is named Veterans Park.

Why is that ironic? Oh, I get it... the myth damn lie of the homeless veteran is rearing its head once again.

Kevin

[tracysaboe]

This could actually be very good publicity for the NH Underground.

Perhaps, some of those in New Hampshire could volentere to some of these charities in opening up their homes to some people.

And those of us outside NH, could try and donate money to some of those individuals doing that, to help with expenses incured by doing that a little bit, perhaps?

Tracy

[Eagle]

This could actually be very good publicity for the NH Underground.

Perhaps, some of those in New Hampshire could volentere to some of these charities in opening up their homes to some people.

And those of us outside NH, could try and donate money to some of those individuals doing that, to help with expenses incured by doing that a little bit, perhaps?

Tracy

Good Thoughts Tracy!

Perhaps the Underground could create an affiliated 'entity' to accomplish these very things!
All that are interested and able will become a part of it.

It seems it may have already begun...as many positive/forward motion things will with Us...as a serendipity-like natural follow-up of actions like Mike and Amethyst's !

[Michael Fisher]

Why do people hold something against president?  He's actually very helpful most of the time regardless of his past.   

There must be some way to find more people like Kelly and help them out, people that are normally very responsible but are only down on their luck and need a temporary hand up.

Hmmmm...  time for some googling!

[Michael Fisher]

Interesting info:

New Hampshire's Homeless Shelters
http://www.gtii.com/members/lannin/shelters/nh.htm

The Homeless Hotline
http://www.nhhelpline.org/homeless.cfm

"These specialists help homeless persons locate emergency shelter during periods of crisis..."


This is one I wouldn't mind helping with.  Perhaps we could sign on as an emergency shelter for families in our community or for responsible people or children who are temporarily down on their luck due to sickness or similar circumstances.  For example, if someone's home or apartment burns down in Newmarket, they'd have a place to stay temporarily.  This sounds like an ideal way for us to help out.  I feel like we need to plug in to existing solutions as much as possible to avoid creating redundant organizations.

[cathleeninnh]

I am planning to look into Somebody Cares. It is a national faith based organization that tries to help those who fall between the cracks of the system. There is a Merrimack Valley Chapter. They claim to exist on donations and volunteers with a little help from United Way.

Cathleen

[Michael Fisher]

That's a good idea.  I wonder if they require that you are a specific religion to help out.  If so, I wonder if there is a similar organization that would allow an atheist to help.

[lildog]

There will never be affordable housing in New Hampshire because of the price of land.  What is considered affordable is outrageous.

Affordable is a very subjective term.  When a community has an average income of $60,000+ affordable there will be a far different animal then it would be in a community with an average income of $30,000.

My wife and I made decent money while living in CT but because we were so close to NY City the homes in our price range were crap.  Once we moved to NH we were able to find a far better home for the same price range we were looking at in CT.  Unfortunately people on our road have been paying ridiculous prices for land and homes driving the value of ours up and thus driving up the taxes along with it.

A two acre plot with NOTHING on it just sold for $200,000 and a smaller ranch home with half the land I have and nothing but a large shed on the property sold for over $100,000 more then I paid for my house just 5 years ago.  And from talking to the people who purchased in both cases they feel as though they got good deals.

[Fluff and Stuff]

The waiting list in most counties is well over 1200.? There will never be affordable housing in New Hampshire because of the price of land.? What is considered affordable is outrageous.

It could be much worse.  In the Burlington, VT area it is very hard for anyone but the poor and rich to find housing.  The Democrats and Progressives have screwed up the area so much that the middle class can hardly even find a house in the area.

At least the middle class can afford to live in NH.  Yes, a pro-freedom system works much better than an anti-freedom system.

[tracysaboe]

I think one of the huge problems, is that a person is required to have a social security number to get a "legitimate" job. Many homeless people don't have such things.

Tracy

[Michael Fisher]

Remember the story about the homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado that provides a hand up instead of a handout?  They take someone in, reform them, and help them lift themselves out of poverty.

---

http://colorado.indymedia.org/newswire/display/5956/index.php

In Denver, Colorado, for example, Step 13 is a program founded by four homeless men.

"Step 13 works to solve the problems of the addicted homeless through a program of tough love, sobriety, and work," wrote Andy Bane for the Independent Institute (1991).

To participate in Step 13, clients are required to take antabuse (a drug that makes you nauseous if you drink alcohol); work, actively seek work, or attend school; attend drug and alcohol education meetings; and pay monthly rent to stay at Step 13 facilities.

"You can't hold their hands," explained Step 13 Executive Director Robert Cote. "You've got to rebuild them from the ground up by making them do what they're capable of doing: sobering up and working. This is the only way to help them to turn their lives around."

In Washington, DC, the Gospel Rescue Ministries operates from a converted crack house in Chinatown.

"Relying on volunteers and private contributions -- not government money -- the ministry operates a 150-man shelter, soup kitchen, food bank, and drug treatment center," wrote Michael Tanner, the director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute (July 1, 1997). "The ministry addresses its clients' needs for more than food and shelter: it provides education, job placement assistance, and spiritual advice."

Like Step 13, the Gospel Rescue Ministries doesn't allow clients to get something for nothing. So, to stay at its shelter, homeless men must pay $3.00 a night or perform one hour of work.

The Gospel Rescue Ministries puts government programs to shame: About two-thirds of the addicts completing its drug treatment program remain drug free, reported Tanner.

"But a government-run drug treatment center just three blocks away has only a 10% success rate, although it spends nearly 20 times as much per client," he wrote.

But government programs, which offer no-questions-asked food and shelter, don't just cost more and succeed less -- they actually seem to encourage homelessness, charged psychiatrist Lawrence Schiff. How? By making it easier to be homeless.

"The greater the monetary value of the benefits ... the larger the number of people willing to consider homelessness as a viable option," he said. Since the homeless can get free accommodations at government shelters (along with free food and medical care), he said, they are "subsidized not to obtain the skills to make the sacrifices necessary to obtain [their own] housing."

Only privately run charity programs -- like Step 13 and the Gospel Rescue Ministries -- seem willing to do the hard work to actually help indigent individuals battle their personal demons and permanently lift themselves from helplessness and homelessness.

---

Hmmm... they force the homeless to go to school and take drugs?     That's how the government grinds up children's minds and molds them to fit into society over the course of 12 years, and it works quite well.

I'm sure we can come up with a more libertarian idea that will work.

"The ministry addresses its clients' needs for more than food and shelter: it provides education, job placement assistance, and spiritual advice."  The Gospel Rescue Ministries doesn't allow clients to get something for nothing. So, to stay at its shelter, homeless men must pay $3.00 a night or perform one hour of work.

How about that type of help?  Make people pay rent, provide them with learning materials, etc.

This is a completely different idea than I was thinking of originally because New Hampshire's homeless problem is so small.  Before moving here, I lived in Vermont for 3 years, most of that time in Burlington, and its homeless problem is unbelievable.  Every single day there are homeless people picking through your garbage, hiding in your yard, hiding their belongings in your trees.  There are homeless people all over the place.  A professor wrote a paper online (I can't find it right now) about Vermont's severe and increasing problems of homelessness and poverty in comparison to New Hampshire and if I remember correctly, his conclusion was that the changes were caused by the political differences between the two states.

The most important and effective thing we can do to reduce homelessness is obviously to keep New Hampshire as free as possible.  But the problem of temporary housing during emergencies will always exist, and I'd like to at least help out by providing that type of shelter for 1 to 2 people.

However, when I was in jail, I gained first hand experience of New Hampshire's homeless problem.  Some people in jail with me were homeless drug addicts.  One homeless man turned himself in to PC (protective custody) because he almost drank himself to death the night of May 9th. 

There must be something we can do to voluntarily solve the problem.  I really like the Gospel Rescue Ministries model.

[KBCraig]

The Gospel Rescue Ministries puts government programs to shame: About two-thirds of the addicts completing its drug treatment program remain drug free, reported Tanner.

"But a government-run drug treatment center just three blocks away has only a 10% success rate, although it spends nearly 20 times as much per client," he wrote.

Bingo.

[tracysaboe]

This article was at the Lp.org website a while back too.

Tracy

[Michael Fisher]

This is the type of thing we could do for people.  This amazes me. 

http://forum.soulawakenings.com/index.php?topic=1579.0

[lildog]

Speaking of doing things for others has anyone heard about the lawsuit against ABC and that show they have where they rebuild people?s homes over a week (I forget the show but its quite fun to watch)?

Anyway, there was a family, which was in the process of adopting 3 ?children? who were orphaned (they ranged from I believe 14 to 21).  This family was chosen for the house make over (that might be the show title, extreme home makeover) and after a week presented an amazing house with huge rooms built for each kid.  Not long after getting the house the family decided they just couldn?t adopt the three kids and the kids were sent back to where they came from (most likely either a foster home or orphanage).  So now the three kids are suing as they were the reason this family was given the large home from ABC and now they are left out in the streets.