Titan, Public Library and the Homeless

One of our Boulder County K-9 corps, who had received multiple awards and decorations during his years of service, passed away from a brain tumor earlier this week.  I attended his funeral; his name was Titan, and he was deployed on 638 missions.  He was a fantastic dog.  So I found myself disturbed with the newspaper headline "Accomplished Boulder Deputy Dog Dies."  As soon as I read that, my mind immediately flipped to Deputy Dawg, the cartoon, by Ralph Bakshi:

This was Titan:

I know it's a silly thing to get upset over, but I feel this canine officer was a true hero.

We had four inches of snow fall Wednesday.  It fell and melted on the sidewalks and roads, before our temperature dipped to 14 degrees (F) this morning.  Because of the icing, my dog walks have been cancelled by the owners - none of us can stand on the skating rink the smoother areas have become.

   I have to admit that I also smiled (in derision) when I read that the City of Boulder will now (a) have a constant police presence at the Boulder Public Library, and that they will (b) have a much more visible presence on "the city campus" - meaning the park areas and open spaces  between the County Court House and Central Park along Boulder Creek, and along the Pearl Street Mall. The problem is the homeless.  People are constantly pan-handling in these almost conjoined areas. Pearl Street Mall is two blocks north of the parks and Creek Path.  People are bathing in the restroom sinks at the library, shaving and shampooing; they pass out from over imbibing alcohol or using drugs; they are extremely loud - I asked a young couple to "please, hold it down" in the computer room the other day, and had a drink and paper wads thrown at me.   

  I was taught that one was quiet in any library - but today, one hears music and assorted ring tones from cell phones; one hears people talking in normal to loud voices; in the computer area there are frequently many more than one person "using" a monitor, and they are all talking and joking.  What happened to quiet in a library?   Some of the folks who use the library -and, yes, it is free for all - it's an important resource for every person - reek of body odor, marijuana, alcohol, some very strong spices and some very strong perfumes.  Now, if I can smell these things, they are strong odors.  I have lost more than 70% of my smell due to various brain injuries, and I sometimes can't smell anything at all.  Some of these folks -  even the well-dressed, not homeless - pour on the patchouli to the point that I gag....  It's just amazing....

   As long as the City and County of Boulder continue to encourage people to stay in this area without an incentive to work and find housing, we'll have this problem with the homeless.  As I have stated before, I have no problem with the people who have had a downturn in fortune, and are trying to get ahead again, trying to get enough money for housing and transportation.  It's the people, both male and female, that I hear discussing which towns and counties, in different states, give "the best" free hand-outs that upset me.  These folks travel from town to town, depending on the time of year, getting free stuff from all over the country - without contributing to society in the least.  Some of them stay in Boulder year-round, and discuss better times, when they were given more freebies by the town and churches.  It's aggravating.  Especially since my husband and I went through a 6 month period of living out of our car - yes, I was a homeless person, myself.  We scraped and saved and started over again.  We did not just sit still and hold our hands out, asking for aid...

***  And, if you want to laugh over the New England Patriots deflation scandal, please watch the Cialis advertisement parody at:  http://www.benstonium.com/  ***

The Homeless In Boulder

I am an extremely lucky person.  I have a roof over my head, and I pay my rent on the third day of each month without fail to be certain it stays that way.  There are a large number of homeless people in Boulder, and the City Council, during it's Winter Retreat, said that dealing with the homeless in Boulder was a needed item on the agenda.  The Council members then went on to state that there had to be a division of the homeless between those, who through no one fault of their own, became homeless, and those who "chose to be homeless."  That has caused a big uproar in Boulder.  One woman wrote a very irate letter to the editor of the local newspaper stating that "no one chooses to be homeless."  I have to disagree with her.
  My husband and I were part of the people who number among "the homeless" for several months.  I had to choose between paying his medical bills, so he would continue to receive treatment (and live), or to make the house payment.  I paid his medical bills.  The house was foreclosed, and we lived out of our Dodge Caravan for several months, until my husband's ex-wife took us into her home.  (Talk about a Saint of a woman - Susan Devine, you are one!) I continued to work and save, and we were able to rent our own place eventually.  It was an extremely emotional and very upsetting time for all of us.  But we were lucky: I kept my job, continued to work, and, thanks to Sue, we were able to save enough money to move out on our own again.
   Now, my husband has been dead for 10 years.  I live in Boulder, where the cost of living is much higher than most towns, other than the ski resort towns.  Boulder is very welcoming, even though the predominantly white population seems unusual to me. Last year, the city budgeted $1.2 million, or 51 %, of the $2.2 million Human Services Fund to help the homeless.  Programs which share the money are the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, the Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow, the Community Food Share, the Bridge House, Medical Respite, Attention Homes, and the Emergency Family Assistance Association.  There are multiple religious houses working for, and with, the homeless; and there are several work programs in place for those who want to work.  There are places to go for assistance, places to sleep, places to eat a good meal, places to receive free clothing and shoes, and places to make a plan (with counseling) on how to get your life back together and move on.  There are normally between 900 and 1,000 homeless people seeking a place to sleep each night in Boulder - about 9.2 percent of our year-round population.  People who study the homeless say that's "an average percentage of the population throughout the state of Colorado."
  In the last eight years, I usually ride the bus from point A to point B in Boulder.  I am usually rather scruffily dressed, as I'm headed out to walk and play with dogs, and I know I'm going to get dirty.  In other words, I'm usually wearing sneakers, jeans or shorts, and a T-shirt.  One of the bus routes I normally use goes to and from the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless - and, in the summer, I'm usually too hot to talk, so I listen to the other passengers.  If you spend the night at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, you are fed breakfast in the morning, and given a bus pass; you have to leave the shelter during the day.  It is amazing to sit quietly and listen to the homeless talk.  Some bewail their fate and are unhappy that someone isn't doing enough to help them - about half of the folks I see and hear.  The other half are folks who really do "choose to be homeless."  The men and women discuss which cities and states have the best free programs.  We have a string of pan-handlers who have specific places where they have "the right" to beg, and they have appointed shifts.  If you're a newcomer, and appear in someone else's territory, you get beaten and/or robbed.
   It's really eye-opening to sit and listen to people compare the free programs between Seattle, Portland, Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, D. C.,  Raleigh, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Denver.  I know some homeless people who drift with the weather - going where they can stay warm, or cool - and then, too, I know of several people who want to "test themselves" and see if they can stay outside year-round here in Boulder.  One man I know has a portable hammock that he carries, along with an electric blanket - he uses photo-voltaic mats to power his battery, so that he sleeps warm at night.
  So I have to disagree with the woman who states that "no one chooses to be homeless."  I'd guess that about 30 percent of the homeless in Boulder are "homeless" from choice.  They can pick up $250 in a couple hours of pan-handling at the corner of Broadway and Canyon - so they can eat, drink, and get high.  Why work?  Why pay rent? The good people of the city (and county) are going to pay for their bed, part of their board, and part of their transportation....   I asked one man, who had been a construction worker, if he could get a job and settle down, would he?  The man laughed at me and said, "Get a life, b****...."
   I feel that those who want to get their lives back together, who want help, and want to again be a person with a fixed  address should have that chance.  But, I must admit that a lot of the people I see as "spongers" leave me cold - I'd love to get the pan-handlers out of town for good.

Sallies Out

It's foggy and a light mist is falling, just as it was when I returned home at 9:30 last night. It's 53 degrees out, and I wore my light-weight rain coat out when I was walking this morning - not that I was cold, but because I wanted to stay a little bit dry. The kits are running in and out, chasing each other, and they are damp from the mist. Other than walking to the recycle bins, the laundry room, and out onto the patio, I plan on staying inside for the rest of the day - just to avoid people. Rosie and Remy were very happy to see me last night, so we took a short walk, and then I read to them. Since tomorrow is Memorial Day and the race, I won't see them, and then I have an appointment with Dr. Shapiro at 10 on Tuesday, so I'll walk them after I've seen Jed. But I have begged a ride with Kathy and Jim back to their neighborhood after the race, so I don't have to pack up and travel by bus over to Brandi's. I'll be back here every afternoon to blog, check e-mail, and love my kits.
With all of the tornadic destruction, and the flooding of the lower Mississippi River, it seems as though other places are being over-looked. How many of you know about the flooding of the reservations in Montana and the Dakotas? Multiple Indian reservations are under water, and have been under water for some time now. But the Native Americans don't get the publicity that everyone else does.... I mean, doesn't losing everything you own, as well as your farming and ranching income, because of flooding on the reservation, where the government says you must live, compare with the folks who are losing everything due to the flooding along the lower Mississippi and the tornadoes in Joplin, Tuscaloosa, Oklahoma and the midwest? Uh-oh. I'm getting angry. I'd better let that topic drop....
And another topic for a Sunday - the homeless and mental illness. There is a big brouhaha going on in Boulder at this point in time, because The Carriage House, a non-profit group that provides aid and assistance to the homeless wants to expand to a larger building. The building in question is on Broadway, between Arapahoe and Canyon, and the back of the building is separated from Central Park by Boulder Creek. One block west is the public library, and the several parks that form the backdrop of the Boulder Creek Festival, from 4th Street up to 13th. The current location of The Carriage House is four blocks to the north, on the west side of Broadway. The Carriage House gives the homeless a place to stay during the daytime hours, and offers a free lunch, counseling and aid. The Homeless Shelter is another 30 blocks north on Broadway, and is closed to the homeless during daylight hours. The homeless tend to congregate in the public library and Central Park when the Shelter is closed. The groups of men and women do, sometimes, appear threatening to me, so I can only imagine what others might think or feel. -
Now, at one point in time, Jeff and I had our condo repossessed, and we lived out of our Dodge Caravan - luckily, we had access to showers where I worked (we had a gym) and we slept in the vehicle. That's as close as I've been to being homeless. - I travel on the bus a great deal, and the folks who stay at the Homeless Shelter and I tend to travel on the same busses. I know that a lot of the people are down on their luck and are doing their best to find a job, make a decent living, and get a place of their own to live in. Then there are the other folks, who travel from city to city, and they discuss where you can get the best hand-outs, best sleeping arrangements, best food, etc. from St. Louis over to Seattle and San Francisco. (The folks from the Homeless Shelter call me "the dog lady", because they always see me on my way to or from walking dogs.) The big to-do is that people in Boulder believe that the homeless population consists mainly of sex offenders and homicidal maniacs. Studies at the Homeless Shelter and the Carriage House have shown that less than 1% of the homeless are known sex offenders, and none are "homocidal maniacs." Business-men (and -women) in the downtown area want the Carriage House moved away from the parks, Broadway, the Pearl Street Mall, and other tourist destinations. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it - I can see the business-folks point of view (no one who owns a business wants groups of smelly, un-kempt panhandlers around), nor do most of the sincerely job-seeking homeless do that. But then there are the professional moochers - and they have staked out their "personal" corners on which to pan-handle, and they will beat the stuffing out of anyone else who dares to try to get money on "their" spot. But I really felt bad for the real homeless, those seeking jobs, counseling, etc. earlier this week. A 9-year-old girl was walking to school and someone tried to grab her and pull her into a passing car. A description was obtained of the man, and he was turned in to police by the director of The Carriage House. The Carriage House works with local law enforcement, and they have taken a huge body-blow by admitting that it was one of their "members" who tried to abduct a young girl.... But does one wormy apple mean all apples are rotten? I don't think so....