Just Knowing Will Never Effect Change !

I was Asked How Is it You believe That You Know the difference Between a good Homeless services Agency and A Bad One Joseph?
I was Hesitant at first to reply, and I replied In Kind, Facing A question with a Question, Why Would You Ask Me That? you refuse To speak To Me In Public You have Me Blocked On Twitter And You removed yourself from My Facebook account!
I also Explained That answering That was almost Like giving Ammo To someone who keeps Shooting at you. However I feel That Everyone Is entitled To answers To their Questions.
It was almost Comical To Me because I had a conversation just a few days Back with someone as To why I felt Like Faith Based Homeless services Should Like any other Organization Be able to Exclude People who Do Not Meet their requirements. And If those Requirements Be That You Attend A Short Service Before Dinner and A bed Or observe A moment of silence While they Pray than It is as A privately Funded Service Organization Their Choice. That Flies In the Face Of Many But It is Or Has Been A fact For some Number Of Years That Faith Based Programs That Have A requirement  Of Attending Any Service Based On that Faith Are Excluded From Federal Funding and Cannot within Any of their Services Requiring It, Partake Of community Development Block Grants. So why Should They Not Have That freedom Of Choice?
I do However Believe That There are Organizations That Are Out there That Are Good And Bad Both Secular And Faith Based. The Way To Tell The difference Is To Me relatively Simple, One Could Either Live On the streets For decades and Try to Get Them To Help You Or You could Look at what They Say about themselves.
Answer This Question? Do Homeless Service Organizations House People?  In Short NO!  There are many that will tell you they Do, Fact is It Is the Dept of Housing and Urban Development, and The section 8 Vouchering system that Houses the Overwhelming Majority Of Homeless In this Country. The Ones Claiming, We Housed I housed, I house, We House, Are in essence Deceiving People. Most Homeless services Agencies If you Look at their Charters and Guidelines Are simply Referral Agencies. They Refer Homeless To State and federal Agencies That Are already available For the Homeless. The Referral Agencies have received Funding In most cases To Help Homeless Individuals Through The Painstaking Application Process. In doing so They are as deceptive as The Counter man at McDonalds if Asking Him What He does For a Living He replies I feed The Hungry! These Are Bad Agencies and Cost ineffective.
Then There are Good agencies and They Do Not Claim We do This Or that They tell you right Up front I am Sorry we are simply a referral Agency. and They do Not Look for Praise. They more often than Not Share with People How they Were blessed To have assisted someone In meeting the right People to Get into Housing, and The generally Talk about How It was a Humbling experience, And They Were Grateful To have Helped.
But the True separation Is the former feel the Homeless Are Lucky To have them to Help, while the Latter feel as If they Were Lucky to have Been able to Help.  Look the Only Point I am Trying to Make is that, Bad Homeless services Agencies Are sucking the Life out of the Homeless and The good ones are struggling to survive Just like the Homeless themselves. Only the Good Ones Aren’t Begging For funding, And The Bad ones will tell you Your better off to Give to Us Than too the Homeless themselves!
What I find Even More Comical Is this After writing About This For Well over a year Now, People Still Just Blindly Follow And Praise These Organizations That Have Failed Us For so Long Believing That They Must be doing Good They say So in their Pamphlets, and their News Letter. Why I even seen Them Tweet How Much Good They Do So It Must Be True.  And People never Bother Too actually Find Out what they do and where their Funding Goes.
The Only Up side Is, That I have also Watched Over the Last year as Some people Have woke Up and Began To question Organizational Failure.
However Knowing It will Never effect Change If in than Knowing You remain Silent!

Standing On What You Believe

We Today Live In a World Where There is In the Minds Of Most Much Confusion about the World Around them and we often Stand divided even within Ourselves as  To where or what we should stand for. For everyone this is a personal Tragedy Or Triumph depending Upon that person And their personal experience.
I can only speak For Myself and This coming from an examination of My beliefs and My personal experience But believe Me when I tell You I by way Of a Post and the Following conversation I had On facebook In this last 24hrs had much soul searching to do and I know that If only true to me I must stand On what I know the Lord has revealed To me as Being True It is Not something I would Debate Or ask that others To Just Blindly Follow But to ask God To reveal To them That truth which Can Only come from Him.

 

The Above Post was Shared to My Page By someone I have come to enjoy having Our facebook interactions with and am often enlightened and blessed By many of Their Post and Observations. I was Personally effected By this Post and also Deeply Troubled And at that I left the Following reply.

Ok I am Confused One Gives Love And Life And the Other Brings Only Death And Misery, If You Are Using The One That Brings Life For More Than A dust Collector, You would Know The other Comes from A different spirit, One That seeks to separate Mankind, From The Spirit Bound in The Truth Of The Other. I am so sorry For the Lengthy Reply I am Just So confused But I bet If Every American Dusted Of the One and Learned How To use It Daily, We could Move all Of Mankind To Lay Down The Other.


This My Post was Left Shortly After the Shared Post was Left, and immediately,when I seen the Image I knew it was Not Myself But the Spirit Within Me that Cried Out, This Is just so wrong. I believe The confusion That I faced was the turmoil  Between offending a friend Or Standing for what I myself truly Believed. I received No response At first and To Myself Early this Morning I thought Boy Now you’ve done It! and I was troubled, However Later I received a response Telling Me I had Made them Think and That I was Right. Little do they Know I was Not In any way right, and Had anguished over opening My big Mouth Again. This Time However I believe Was For The reason, That I was Open to follow that still small voice of the Spirit In which I heeded. I Often In My life Fail At this I know what is Right , And I do what Is right For Joseph And Not What Is right.


But in This I was taught A valuable Lesson and That Being that we as A Church, And By Church I mean Everyone Man Woman And Child That Cries Out Jesus Is Lord,  Often fail In Our role Of society Because We often Do not seek the Spirit In matters Of simplicity Or of Grave Importance, And Most often Seek That which Is right for Us.
The Above Image Which Triggered This Post was In it’s Original Form Conceived By I am Sure a Brother Or Sister In Christ Living In the Same Turmoil with Which we all Gods Children Struggle With Everyday.  And I ask That they Be blessed. But I ask Of what Strange Spirit was It Conceived,  And How were They so easily Deceived, Knowing That It Can and Has Happened as easily To Me.


And  To Others I must Point Out That It is Most worldly And appalling to God The Creator And We Deny The Very Spirit Of Christ In the representation Of Him In any Form But That Of Love And self Sacrifice. We Must Cling To That which Is Good And Yes He Even Says Hate And deplore That Which Is Evil And Not to call That Which Is Evil Good, Nor That Which Is Good Evil. So To Compare That Which Gives Life His Word To That which Gives Death A Firearm And Portray Them as Equal In Value Is Not Of God.


Be Thankful Though Church Because These Are the Strong Delusions Of which His Word Warned Us Against And Be Full Of Mercy And Hope because These Things Being accepted as Part of the Norm, He Must Truly Be near.


And I thank Him Mostly For His Mercy And Grace, Because I look Behind Me I have Had Failures Greater Than This, But I do Know It is Not Counted Unto Me Because Christ Jesus Paid The Price.   

A unique Alternative in Combating Poverty

“instead of spending billions building affordable housing lets spend billions building up people to be able to afford housing”
                                                Joseph Wilson
This is How I arrived at this Train Of thought!
What they are not telling you, is this the number of homeless people in America is dropping and not rising. In the minds of most people it is a problem that is increasing with each and every day. However this is not something that is based on fact but rather based on fear.
There is A reason For there Being Not an increase but rather a decrease In The Homeless population, And That Can be contributed To HPRP (Or American Recovery And reinvestment Act)  the rapid rehousing Program, In the Height of The economic decline and The recent Hit to the Housing Market And failing banks, Rapid rehousing was instituted so Others who recently Defaulted on their Mortgages didn’t face The inhumanity of becoming Part of America’s Homeless population and were spared this Indignity By this Program by going from Foreclosure To Section 8 homes. In most cases.

Hud Releases 2011 Point in time Count.
 This afternoon, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the results of the January 2011 point-in-time count. According to their report, 636,017 people were homeless in the United States on a single night in January. This represents a 2.1 percent decline from the year before. Earlier this morning, HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a 12 percent decline in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness decreased from 76,329 homeless veterans to 67,495 homeless veterans between January 2010 and January 2011.
According to press releases, these declines are largely attributed to federal programs providing housing to homeless people and families, including the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program and the HUD-VA Supportive Housing Program.
While  Stalling The Increase In the Homeless Population at Large It in No way Fixed the Problem. It did However Keep The Population From Growing. I contend That we no Longer Need affordable Housing and It’s Time Has Long Ago Come and Gone and was from The very  Beginning, An Ill Conceived Plan In combating Homelessness and Poverty.so Lets Look at Affordable Housing while asking Ourselves.
1.Is It Affordable?   And   2. Is It sustainable?
Affordable Housing In the Minds Of Most people Is as Follows A dwelling That one could afford, while receiving The Federal Minimum wage. Poverty Level Is Deemed as being $10,980 for a single Adult and $3,820 for each additional family Member, This Is The Federal poverty level and varies To a degree from state to state. as does Housing Cost However when Organizations Talk of affordable Housing what They are talking about Is Federally subsidized Housing, those accepting Low income and section 8 vouchering. This Is what I am asking Is federally subsidized Housing affordable? In Short No would Be My answer.
This Because It comes at 2 High A cost and In that, It Eliminates A vast Majority of Homeless and Impoverished Individuals. Because one Must first have an income to qualify For Housing. And Often That income Must exceed federal poverty Levels Or you must Qualify for section 8 subsidies. and the cost to the American Tax payer Is on a national Average $160,000 per unit to build without cost overruns and then it through section 8 vouchering, cost an average of  $9,000- $16,000 annually to sustain depending on the size of the family and the part of the country You are in. People often do not understand this and say that is Not right These people are low income and only pay $130 a month for rent or whatever their income requires them to pay. and this is true what They overlook is that the balance of the rent they pay ( Local Market Pricing) What They would Charge the Average Well funded Individual For rent, Is covered By the American Tax payer In the Vouchering Subsidies Programs.
So If you Really Look At it, It Becomes clear That we Can No Longer Afford Affordable Housing. In a country Where Banks and Corporations are given Billions In bail out Money and corporations Disguising Themselves as Public Housing Authorities, Continue To accept Federal subsidies For the same families That the Banks, Foreclosed On who were Once Buying these Vacant Homes All over our Countries. So I said What I did Because I believe It to Be true.
  “instead of spending billions building affordable housing lets spend billions building up people to be able to afford housing”
We have enough Vacant Homes In this Country, So To advocate The Building Of More and and Making them affordable Is simply stated Insanity why Don’t We Just spend the Billions allocated To Building More Affordable Housing.To Building Up the Lives Of The Impoverished, UnHoused (Homeless) Marginally Housed. People Struggling to Survive Too A point of Being able to afford the Homes We already Have Being Held Hostage By the Banks And Corporations Who have run this country Into The Ground.
Change Of the System Will Never Happen Until We see That The system Has truly Failed. It’s Not about People Not Having a House Or a Home There Are Empty Homes Everywhere You Look, It’s Just That Some People Can’t Afford To Have One!
So Lets Start Looking at the People aspect, So we don’t continue to Fail, Because Believe It Or Not Housing And Food Are A Basic Human Right.
*Facts and Figures In the Above Post Came from HUD.GOV and HHS.Gov and are From 2011 Reports made available From Jan 2012-March2012.
**These Housing Numbers are accurate and Current and are Often Over inflated By organizations and Individuals For effect some even Stating Homeless #’s as High as 7million at the same time praising themselves for being part of the PIT count. this Post represents accurate Numbers from that point in time count. 

“PEOPLE ARE DYING”

The HEARTH Act, enacted by Congress in May 2009, mandated that the USICH produce a "national strategic plan" to end homelessness to Congress and the President. Beginning in January 2010, USICH held regional stakeholder meetings, organized federal working groups focused on specific populations, solicited public comment through an interactive website, and engaged experts from across the country to develop an action plan to solve homelessness for veterans, adults, families, youth, and children. The result of that mandate and engagement of all stakeholders is Opening Doors.
The Above came from US.Gov Web Site Serving Housing and Urban Development, And in My mind as well as anyone Who has for the Last 2 decades been aware of the Homeless Problem In this Country,Know That within this Very decision there is so much being said. to start with I would Like to Point out That it was a Mandate given To the USICH United States Interagency Council On Homelessness. It has since then Been attributed to The present Presidential Administration. While the 111th Congress Held a democratic Majority and Republican Minority by a 42 to 58% margin. The closest thing this country has had to a Bipartisan congress in many years.
The Mandate Forwarded to USICH, came on the Heals Of 15yr’s of failure in solving the Homeless Problem In America, Congress Had obviously seen a need To Motivate The Agency Who had for so Long failed, However with That mandate again Give them Free reign To solve the Homeless Problem In America. This Time The US 111th Congress is to share In the Blame With USICH for This failure In that They failed to bring any accountability To this Mandate.
And since No oversight was Placed on This Mandate, we Now Have what we have always Had In the Homeless services Industry  The revamping Of a failed Plan. There is However reason For this The USICH by their own admission relied On what they referred to as Homeless experts However These Experts Represented A consortium Of agencies who had received Funding for well over a decade for a 10yr plan to end Homelessness, Well These Geniuses took a Proactive stance this time in Eradicating Homelessness. They simply  decided That this 10yr plan that was Now failing all over the country after so long could be accomplished If they used the same Model Permanent supportive Housing and Did so saying it could now be done in 5yr or 3 years, Hence the establishment of 100K homes a brain Child Of common Grounds and It’s sister industry representatives. Many of which Are Offshoots of Roseanne Hagerty  The Founder Common Grounds.It having Taken Over A year and Millions Of dollars To have conceived Of this Plan. We are Now left With, It Is what It is, 100k Homes is Praised By The Homeless Industry, Far and wide It is Being called By all the answer To The problem. A 3yr plan to house 100K Of the Nations most vulnerable Homeless Individuals, If this plan succeeds In this The Industry will accomplish what it has set out to do, And that is To continue their funding!
However we are now 18 Month’s Into this Plan and It too Is Failing Having Housed Only 12,600 + of the Nations Most vulnerable. But Never worry, well For those Who are inside Sleeping comfortable In their Beds I say Never Worry, However this Is what the Homeless Them selves are faced with.
Recently Posted By 100k Homes Community action and involvement.Leaders
  That’s why, beginning March 1st, we will implement the following new strategies:

• We will extend the Campaign’s end date by one year, from July 2013 to July 2014, to allow more time for the best ideas to spread and the most high-impact systems changes to take hold
  
• In addition to focusing on their most vulnerable neighbors, we will ask communities to report the chronically homeless individuals and families that many are already housing anyway. We think that this will expand the scope of learning that can happen on the Campaign and put communities in a better position to reach the federal goals laid out in Opening Doors.
  
• We will ask every participating community to work toward a housing placement rate of 2.5% of its chronic and vulnerable populations (based on 2010 federal data) each month.  This number reflects the rate at which all communities would need to be housing people today in order to reach their federal goals and truly end homelessness faster than it is increasing.
  
• Community Solutions will do everything possible to expand access to Campaign trainings and boot camps (through cost cutting, the creation of virtual tools, and more). We will also enhance the hands-on technical assistance that we provide to participating communities through increased organizing and more helpful tools.
  
• The Community Solutions staff will draw on Campaign-wide data and work with our strategic partners to advocate aggressively at the federal level for key policy changes to make it easier and faster to house chronic and vulnerable homeless individuals and families. These include expanding access to mainstream housing resources like Medicaid, VASH and Section 8, as well as streamlining federal housing placement requirements and processes.

Finally, what does this mean for your community? The Campaign support staff from Community Solutions has formed a series of specialized teams to support you directly if you’re ready to implement these changes and pursue these goals. The Field Organizing team, led by Linda Kaufman, will continue to hold quarterly Boot Camp trainings open to all participating communities. The Quality Improvement Team, led by Beth Sandor, will  provide hands-on assistance to help communities improve their monthly housing placement rates to 2.5% of their total chronic and vulnerable populations. This will include a monthly email to each community highlighting your current housing placement rate and your progress toward housing 2.5% of your chronic and vulnerable populations monthly. The team is currently conducting a deep dive analysis of best practices in several communities to develop implementation tools. Look for new training materials this spring.
We’ve also created two key advocacy teams to support the movement as a whole. The Systems Change Team, led by Jessica Venegas, will work with the Quality Improvement Team and Communications Team to listen to your needs on the ground and amplify our collective voice to key federal and strategic partners and policymakers. This team’s goal is to improve the top-down policies and conditions for your work, so be sure to let them know what you need! The Communications Team, led by Jake Maguire, will work with participating communities to draw attention to successful local models and to build momentum for key policy shifts at the federal level. This team will also help communities maximize media for local support and fundraising. And lastly, we will continue to enlist and seek the on-going advice and assistance of as many national partners as possible, all of whom will be accessible in some way to participating communities.
We believe that if we make these targeted adjustments, we can make significant headway toward reaching our goals and fundamentally altering America’s response to homelessness. We can’t wait to continue working with and hearing from all participating communities as we continue to tailor our strategies. For assistance or more information, please contact your field organizer. If you live in Texas or the Mountain or Pacific time zones, contact Mike Shore. If you live in the Eastern or Central time zones (minus Texas), contact Linda Kaufman.   
Woohooo, Homeless people Now Have been Given At least another Year to Be on the streets. After Being On the streets for 20+ yr’s I can tell you there will those that adapt and those that Die, Thanks for the extension Can you Do this Or Not? 
I have Been criticized By One of the Most Prominent Homeless advocates In this Country for My Disbelief and My inability To stop crying Out against the abuse of Homeless Agencies telling Me often Cant you Just Get along, all the while Me saying No I can Not, While holding On to this Post For sometime I felt Today I could Publish This Post without fear Of reprisal Because The Homeless advocate I speak Of today Weather Knowingly or Unwittingly was able to State and I quote
“Anyone that doesn't see homeless services system is broken has their head in guacamole! PEOPLE ARE DYING & tax payer $ is being WASTED!”

                                                          M Horvath, Founder Of Invisible People

My Only Question Would Be, Now Knowing This How Can you still Get Along?