The "Home" in Home for the Holidays
In all the talk about budgets and dollars and cents and how much to spend on homelessness, it's important to remember the human beings we are making decisions about.
In all the talk about budgets and dollars and cents and how much to spend on homelessness, it's important to remember the human beings we are making decisions about.
Time and again people across the country share with me what a gift the act of volunteering has been for them. It's time to share what we have to prevent the frightening increase in homelessness, especially among families and children.
Difficult times need wise men to tell difficult truths. And, for many years, Buffett has done just that. So it was deeply distressing to listen to him last week joining in the economic victory lap the Obama administration is taking.
The population of New York, Florida and Washington D.C. combined represents the number of Americans who must currently choose between food or gas, between a doctor's visit or an electric bill... between life and death.
The latest numbers show that 131,000 United States veterans will be homeless tonight. This number is approximately one-fifth of the entire homeless population.
I have found that approximately 25 percent of homeless people are children. Together, women and children make up close to 40 percent of homeless people and are the fastest growing segment.
I didn't know you could play a Celine Dion CD off a car battery. But Mike Casper has figured how. He's one of 20 or so residents of River Haven, a transitional encampment in Ventura County, California.
The way we care for our veterans is a reflection of our society. We cannot neglect them in their own time of need, as we did following the Vietnam War.
I remember him every time a street person asks for money, when a guy holds up a cardboard sign saying something like "Viet Nam vet. Will work for food," when news stories cover soldiers returned from Iraq.
As our nation pauses for Veterans Day, it is important to recognize the incredible work being done to combat homelessness among those who serve. To eradicate this scourge, current efforts must be bolstered.
I was surprised that it was a psychiatrist that shot a lot of people. It's no longer surprising to me that returning veterans would kill a bunch of people. But this guy was a psychiatrist who hadn't been deployed.
If volunteerism is to be a powerful driver of social impact and business value, government, nonprofit and business leaders must focus not just on more volunteers, but on more productive volunteering.
Over the months I've come to not only respect the street kids I work with for what they've gone through, but to understand that they are survivors.
I've been working with homeless families since I was very young. One thing I've learned is that making a personal connection is just as important as opening your wallet.
The crew from Red Eye, Inc. recently passed out water bottles and PB&J sandwiches to people on Skid Row. This is how I was inspired.
"Get a job!" is an easy expression to say. However, for some homeless people, getting a job is an impossible dream.
Given Thompson's financial disadvantage, losing by a respectable margin to Bloomberg can be spun as a moral victory, so in a sense Thompson can't lose. But his people think they can win.
There's a lot of soul-searching going on among designers. Many have begun to grapple with the question: What is the role for design in a world that is no longer quite as "fabulous" as it once was?
"Far too many people rely on Emergency Room services for routine or primary care," Senator Sherrod Brown said earlier this week in a statement announcing the REDUCE Act. We couldn't agree more.
Rey Leal has fought on the streets of Fallujah; for mental health care in south Texas; and in Washington, for a solution to years of late veterans' health care budgets. Today, Rey and millions of veterans have won their fight.
Two recent news stories keep coming together in my mind: The incredible Goldman Sachs bonuses amounting to more than $16 billion, and the recent report by the Coalition for the Homeless, of the record 40,000 homeless people sleeping in NYC shelters.