Anitra/homelessness

A win for homeless encampments! In 2006, the city of Woodinville denied a permit application to host a tent city at Northshore United Church of Christ, on the grounds that all temporary use permits were under moratorium. July 16, 2009, the state Supreme Court ruled that they were wrong in doing so: they had a right and duty "to impose reasonable conditions on the Church's project to protect the safety and peace of the neighborhood," but not to categorically prevent the Church from exercising what the City itself concedes is religious practice.

My bestest birthday present. :)

Home Free Organization is a non-profit group which supplies free wi-fi to homeless via donated bread trucks and computers. NYC

Get your homeless widget! Including a homeless shelter search engine you can post on your own site or blog (anywhere you can use javascript).

A social network site for everyone concerned about homelessness in the US: our own "third world."

An introduction to Elaine Simons, "house mother" of the homeless youth group Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets.

A high-school student's sensitive account of his one-day tour of homelessness.

A grassroots organization in Florida is taking over abandoned homes for homeless families.

A documentary on homeless teens living on the streets of Seattle: KIRO 7, 10PM, Tuesday June 23, 2009.

Seattle has more shelter and services for homeless people than any other city in the US, because Seattle has the most highly organized and activist homeless community in the US. More than half of Seattle's growing number of homeless people are still left outside. Homelessness is a national problem, and it will take systemic changes at the national level to end it.

Seattle city government still puts obstacles in the way of people providing shelter for themselves, as in encampments and hand-built structures like Nickelsville (although that is changing, as the economy forces realism even on the unwilling).

Seattle is not really a city full of liberals. Seattle is a city full of people who call themselves liberals. Just as, east of the mountains, you can find a lot of people who are not really conservative -- they just call themselves that.