Thoughts on Homelessness

1. Thoughts on Homelessness

2. Exploitation, alienation, poverty, disempowerment, fragmenting and debilitating labor, production for the profit of a few -- much less harsh homelessness, starvation, and degradation -- are not like gravity. They arise from institutional relations established by human beings. New institutions, also established by human beings, can generate other vastly superior outcomes. Defining and working to attain those new institutions ought to be our economic agenda. -- Michael Albert

3. All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.” -- Philip Johnson

4. People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people without homes. Sheila McKechnie

5. "Why keep the poor weak, then punish them for being weak, and glorify ourselves by handing them charity that they would not need if they were treated justly from the beginning?"p.24 American Homeless Land Modelhttp://www.homelesslandmodel.com/ahlm24.html

6. 'I'm not so sure that people consider homelessness to be as important as, say, the Vietnam War. One should never even try to equate them because, of course, they're tragedies on both sides of the coin.' Graham Nash, Musician

7. Homelessness is the actor's fate; physical incapacity to attain what is most required and desired by such a spirit as I am a slave to.Edwin Booth

8. Where the Weapons of Mass Destruction Are 'I know where weapons of mass destruction are... Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction. And when the government lies to the American people, that is a weapon of mass destruction.' - We have weapons of mass destruction we have to address here at home. Dennis Kucinich

9. "I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace." --Frederico Garcia Lorca

10. People can be so apathetic. They continue to ignore the real people trapped in poverty and homelessness. It's almost maddening.Daphne Zuniga

11. Although AmeriCorps is making a difference among its participants and the people they serve, we must address homelessness and the need for job training among our veterans.Cliff Stearns

12. “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” Mother Theresa de Calcutta, Albanian born Indian Missionary and Founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. 1910-1997

13. OTHERS BY Mother Theresa de Calcutta, Albanian born Indian Missionary and Founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. 1910-1997 • “Unless a life is lived for others, it is not worthwhile” • “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

14. "I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people." --- Eduardo Galeano

15. "An underpaid worker that cannot afford housing is an industrial slave." p.22 American Homeless Land Model http://www.homelesslandmodel.com/ahlm22.html

16. At any given time today in America, there are about half a million people who are "homeless" -- they don't have a “permanent, safe, decent, affordable place to live.” Around the world there are about 100 million homeless people, and many of them are women and children.--Robert Alan

17. “Shelter Network’s programs and services are a rainbow in the clouds for homeless children and adults.”-- Maya Angelou

18. Clearly, there are a thousand and one scenarios for how someone can slip through the cracks. I'll walk down the street and see a homeless person and I'll want to stop them and say, How did this happen? Where's your mother? Are you physically ill? Mentally ill? -- William Baldwin

19. "A strong economy causes an increase in the demand for housing; the increased demand for housing drives real-estate prices and rentals through the roof. And then affordable housing becomes completely inaccessible."-- William Baldwin

20. You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a golf course.-- Jello Biafra

21. “Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.” -- Christian NevellBovee

22. Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.--Ralph J. Bunche

23. ‘What we would like to do is change the world-make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do.’-- Dorothy Day

24. "When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do. We don't have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.-- Bernie Glassman

25. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?” -- Mohandas Gandhi

26. "This is my chosen fast: to loosen all the bonds that bind humans unfairly, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, take the homeless into your homes, clothe the naked when you see him/her, do not turn away from people in need. Then cleansing life shall break forth like the dawn, and your wounds shall soon be healed. Your triumph shall go before you and your Lord’s glory shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. " -- Isaiah 57

27. Support for shelters and transitional living and housing programs is necessary if we are going to change the landscape for homeless in America.-- Jewel Kilcher

28. Most homeless kids are on the streets because they have been forced by circumstances that cause them to think that they are safer there than in any home they once knew.– Jewel, singer

29. Life in a shelter or on the streets puts homeless at a higher risk for physical and sexual assault and abuse, physical illness, including HIV/AIDS-- Jewel

30. We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can't solve. -- Linda Lingle

31. Seven out of 10 Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless. -- Pras Michel

32. 'My home is a place of warmth and love. No one should be denied a home.' -- Gail Porter

33. "Don't try to drive the homeless into places we find suitable. Help them survive in places they find suitable." -- Daniel Quinn

34. If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family.-- Susan Sarandon

35. As Secretary of Housing, I do have to express alarm, signal the alarm if you will, that the potential for homelessness to grow is there.Henry Cisneros

36. Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger; or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illnesses or the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities. In other cases, the unfreedom links closely to the lack of public facilities and social care, such as the absence of epidemiological programs, or of organized arrangements for the health care or educational facilities, or of effective insititutions for the maintenance of local peace and order. In still other cases, the violation of freedom results directly from a denial of political and civil liberties by authoritarian regimes and from imposed restrictions on the freedom to participate in the social, political and economic life of the community. -- AmartyaSen

37. somebody right now is trying to help the indigent and poor - providing food, shelter, clothing or simple kindness. -- Tony Snow

38. All these people talking about morality should just take a walk downtown. They don't want to go downtown because instantly they see homeless people and they don't want to. -- Neil Young

39. “In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.” Maya Angelou

40. 'Home is a sanctuary for me and the place where I can relax. Everyone should have the right to a safe and secure home.' -- Corinne Bailey Rae