Absolutes can be tricky because there is usually an exception that "proves" or breaks every rule. We have often heard the expression, "Never say never!" We generally know in our hearts that in the world of human beings, no one is perfect, no rule remains unbroken and no expressions are...

This post begins a series of articles about the myths surrounding homelessness. Myths are just widely held thoughts or beliefs that are not generally true. Possibly one of the most widely expressed myths is that homeless people would not be homeless except for the fact they don't want to get...

Yesterday, I wrote what I considered an academic piece describing The Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), the $1.5 billion part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) that President Obama signed into law this past February.

Today, my friend, Maurice, sent me the following two...

On February 17th, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) into law. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is administering $1.5 billion of this $787 billion stimulus package through its Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP). HPRP funding is truly significant...

If you think the public debate about universal health care is loud and sometimes acrimonious, just think about what would happen if we ever start talking about whether homeless people have rights.

What rights would we be talking about? I couldn't say it better, so here it is from...

It seems that every service provider has a solution to homelessness. And guess what, it's their own program! That's fine with me, except service providers generally do not play well with other service providers. They generally don't share their programs, they generally don't share their ideas and they generally don't...

I never knew when Mama Lee was born and I don't remember the exact day in 1995 when she died, but I knew and loved Mama Lee during the ten years she was a homeless Vietnam veteran living on the streets of Santa Monica, California. Born in Texas, Mama Lee...

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
- Rabindranath Tagore

"Service." The word alone can conjure up a daunting feeling of being responsible for doing something we might...

We've all seen a homeless man on a street corner holding a cardboard sign that read something like, "Homeless Veteran... Can You Help?" We might have asked ourselves, "Could that sign be true?" The answer is yes!

How many homeless veterans are there? Who are these homeless veterans? How...

Domestic violence perpetrated upon women is a leading cause of homelessness for women and their children. In fact, the National Network to End Domestic Violence in its current online article, "Housing: Issue Overview", states "the interrelated nature of domestic violence and homelessness is undeniable."

Please play...

It is possible to end homelessness. How? There are three steps to ending homelessness. These steps can be approached individually or at the same time.

Step One: Open public toilets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with showers and laundry facilities.

Having worked with people...

Raise your hand if you've ever seen a person who you thought was homeless. I can see that all hands are up!

I'll be 61 years old this week and when I was young, the situation was not as it is now. In my youth, the vast majority...

The charitable giving of food is giving food to a person without charging that person any money for the food. It is true compassion and can be life saving.

When we want to serve food to someone living outside, we consider a few things.

1. We "serve" food...

We can help a homeless person by serving him/her food, a blanket and/or necessary items. It's a pretty simple and wonderful thing to do.

In this article, I would like to propose a way to share items with homeless people. This distribution method of serving an unhoused person has...

Do you ever wonder who could possibly help a homeless person? The answer is each of us can help. It's called direct service - helping someone in need ourselves.

But how? There are many ways to help a person in need, including giving a homeless person a blanket. That's...