[align=center]MCF Public Service Post[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]You can make a difference 4-Sure[/align][align=center][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][:-][/align][align=center]When you think your life is bad, just watch the news, or[/align][align=center]read your local paper[/align][align=center]We must count our blessings, and help those that are without.[/align][align=center]Help `if you can ~ Share `if you can, thank you![/align][align=center]What are you doing to make your World a better place [/align][align=center]for `all ?[/align][align=center]
[X(]Homelessness [X(]
[:-][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter. The term "homelessness" may also include people whose primary nighttime residence is in a homeless shelter, in an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or in a public or private place not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.[1][2] A small number of people choose to be homeless nomads, such as some Romani people (Gypsies) and members of some subcultures.[3] An estimated[/align][align=center][X(]100 million people [X(]worldwide are homeless [X(][/align][align=center](We must count our blessings & Help those in need) 4-$ure
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines a "chronically homeless" person as "an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years."[5][/align][align=center]Click below 4 more infor[/align][align=center][:-][/align][align=center]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness

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Presently, I am MonteLess, but I am thankful that I am not HomeLess
[/align][align=center][IMG]local://upfiles/4301/C8385924985B4897860CB3AF8EB3E3B7.jpg[/IMG] [/align]

 

[align=center]The world of the homeless seems very far from yours but in some ways it is quite near. For any of us, the loss of a job, the death of a spouse or a child or a severe physical disability could be the route to total despair. These are the very tragedies that have happened to many homeless people. Struck by personal tragedies, the people in shelters across America, have lost their homes and been deserted by the families and friends they once had. What can you do to help them? Sometimes the smallest can go a long way. [/align][ol][*][align=center]Understand who the homeless are - Help dispel the stereotypes about the homeless. Learn about the different reasons for homelessness, and remember, every situation is unique. [/align][*][align=center]Educate yourself about the homeless - A homeless person may be someone who lost their job, a runaway child, or someone with a mental illness. One of the first steps in helping people is to see them as individuals and to find out what they need. Notice them; talk to them. Most are starved for attention. [/align][*][align=center]Respect the homeless as individuals - Give the homeless people the same courtesy and respect you would accord your friends, your family, your employer. Treat them as you would wish to be treated if you needed assistance. [/align][*][align=center]Respond with kindness - We can make quite a difference in the lives of the homeless when we respond to them, rather than ignore or dismiss them. Try a kind word and a smile. [/align][*][align=center]Develop lists of shelters - Carry a card that lists local shelters so you can hand them out to the homeless. You can find shelters in your phone book. [/align][*][align=center]Buy Street Sheet - This biweekly newspaper is sold in almost every major American city and is intended to help the homeless help themselves. For every paper sold, the homeless earn five cents deposited in a special savings account earmarked for rent. [/align][*][align=center]Bring food - It's as simple as taking a few extra sandwiches when you go out. When you pass someone who asks for change, offer him or her something to eat. If you take a lunch, pack a little extra. When you eat at a restaurant, order something to take with you when you leave. [/align][*][align=center]Give money - One of the most direct ways to aid the homeless is to give money. Donations to nonprofit organizations that serve the homeless go a long way. [/align][*][align=center]Give recyclables - In localities where there is a "bottle law," collecting recyclable cans and bottles is often the only "job" available to the homeless. But it is an honest job that requires initiative. You can help by saving your recyclable bottles, cans, and newspapers and giving them to the homeless instead of taking them to a recycling center or leaving them out for collection. If you live in a larger city, you may wish to leave your recyclables outside for the homeless to pick up or give a bagful of cans to a homeless person in your neighborhood. [/align][*][align=center]Donate clothing - Next time you do your spring or fall cleaning, keep an eye out for those clothes that you no longer wear. If these items are in good shape, gather them together and donate them to organizations that provide housing for the homeless. [/align][*][align=center]Donate a bag of groceries - Load up a bag full of nonperishable groceries, and donate it to a food drive in your area. If your community doesn't have a food drive, organize one. Contact your local soup kitchens, shelters, and homeless societies and ask what kind of food donations they would like. [/align][*][align=center]Donate toys - Children living in shelters have few possessions if any including toys. Homeless parents have more urgent demands on what little money they have, such as food and clothing. So often these children have nothing to play with and little to occupy their time. You can donate toys, books, and games to family shelters to distribute to homeless children. For Christmas or Chanukah, ask your friends and co-workers to buy and wrap gifts for homeless children. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer at a shelter - Shelters thrive on the work of volunteers, from those who sign people in, to those who serve meals, to others who counsel the homeless on where to get social services. For the homeless, a shelter can be as little as a place to sleep out of the rain or as much as a step forward to self-sufficiency. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer at a soup kitchen - Soup kitchens provide one of the basics of life, nourishing meals for the homeless and other disadvantaged members of the community. Volunteers generally do much of the work, including picking up donations of food, preparing meals, serving it, and cleaning up afterward. To volunteer your services, contact you local soup kitchen, mobile food program, shelter, or religious center. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer your professional services - No matter what you do for a living, you can help the homeless with your on-the-job talents and skills. Those with clerical skills can train those with little skills. Doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, and dentists can treat the homeless in clinics. Lawyers can help with legal concerns. The homeless' needs are bountiful your time and talent won't be wasted. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer your hobbies - Every one of us has something we can give the homeless. Wherever our interests may lie cooking, repairing, gardening, and photography we can use them for the homeless. Through our hobbies, we can teach them useful skills, introduce them to new avocations and perhaps point them in a new direction. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer for follow-up programs - Some homeless people, particularly those who have been on the street for a while, may need help with fundamental tasks such as paying bills, balancing a household budget, or cleaning. Follow-up programs to give the formerly homeless further advice, counseling, and other services need volunteers. [/align][*][align=center]Tutor homeless children - A tutor can make all the difference. Just having adult attention can spur children to do their best. Many programs exist in shelters, transitional housing programs, and schools that require interested volunteers. Or begin you own tutor volunteer corps at your local shelter. It takes nothing more than a little time. [/align][*][align=center]Take homeless children on trips - Frequently, the only environment a homeless child knows is that of the street, shelters, or other transitory housing. Outside of school if they attend these children have little exposure to many of the simple pleasures that most kids have. Volunteer at your local family shelter to take children skating or to an aquarium on the weekend. [/align][*][align=center]Volunteer at battered women's shelter - Most battered women are involved in relationships with abusive husbands or other family members. Lacking resources and afraid of being found by their abusers, many may have no recourse other than a shelter or life on the streets once they leave home. Volunteers handle shelter hotlines, pick up abused women and their children when they call, keep house, and offer counseling. Call your local shelter for battered women to see how you can help. [/align][*][align=center]Teach about the homeless - If you do volunteer work with the homeless, you can become an enthusiast and extend your enthusiasm to others. You can infect others with your own sense of devotion by writing letters to the editor of your local paper and by pressing housing issues at election time. [/align][*][align=center]Publish shelter information - Despite all of our efforts to spread the word about shelters, it is surprising how many people are unaware of their own local shelters. Contact your local newspapers, church or synagogue bulletins, or civic group's newsletters about the possibility of running a weekly or monthly listing of area services available to the homeless. This could include each organization's particular needs for volunteers, food, and other donations. [/align][*][align=center]Educate your children about the homeless - Help your children to see the homeless as people. If you do volunteer work, take your sons and daughters along so they can meet with homeless people and see what can be done to help them. Volunteer as a family in a soup kitchen or shelter. Suggest that they sort through the toys, books, and clothes they no longer use and donate them to organizations that assist the poor. [/align][*][align=center]Sign up your company/school - Ask your company or school to host fund-raising events, such as raffles or craft sales and donate the proceeds to nonprofit organizations that aid the homeless. You can also ask your company or school to match whatever funds you and your co-workers or friends can raise to help the homeless. [/align][*][align=center]Recruit local business - One of the easiest ways to involve local businesses is to organize food and/or clothing drives. Contact local organizations to find out what is needed, approach local grocery or clothing shops about setting up containers on their premises in which people can drop off donations, ask local businesses to donate goods to the drive, and publicize the drive by placing announcements in local papers and on community bulletin boards and by posting signs and posters around your neighborhood. [/align][*][align=center]Create lists of needed donations - Call all the organizations in your community that aid the homeless and ask them what supplies they need on a regular basis. Make a list for each organization, along with its address, telephone number, and the name of a contact person. Then mail these lists to community organizations that may wish to help with donations every place from religious centers to children's organizations such as Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. [/align][*][align=center]Play with children in a shelter - Many children in shelters are cut off from others their own age. Shuffled from place to place, sometimes these kids don't attend school on a regular basis, and have no contact with other kids. Bring a little joy to their lives by taking your children to a local shelter to play. Plan activities such as coloring, playing with dolls, or building model cars (take along whatever toys you'll need). Your own children will benefit too. [/align][*][align=center]Employ the homeless - Help Wanted - General Office Work. Welfare recipient, parolee, ex-addict OK. Good salary, benefits. Will train. That's the way Wildcat Service Corporations Supported Work Program invites the "unemployable" to learn to work and the program works! More than half the people who sign on find permanent, well-paying jobs, often in maintenance, construction, clerical, or security work. [/align][*][align=center]Help the homeless apply for aid - Governmental aid is available for homeless people, but many may not know where to find it or how to apply. Since they don't have a mailing address, governmental agencies may not be able to reach them. You can help by directing the homeless to intermediaries, such as homeless organizations, that let them know what aid is available and help them to apply for it. If you want to be an advocate or intermediary for the homeless yourself, you can contact these organizations as well. [/align][*][align=center]Stand up for the civil rights of the homeless - In recent elections, for example, volunteers at shelters and elsewhere helped homeless people register to vote . . . even though they had "no fixed address" at the moment. Some officials would not permit citizens without a permanent address to vote. [/align][*][align=center]Join Habitat for Humanity - This Christian housing ministry builds houses for families in danger of becoming homeless. Volunteers from the community and Habitat homeowners erect the houses. Funding is through donations from churches, corporations, foundations, and individuals. [/align][*][align=center]Form a transitional housing program - One of the most potent homeless-prevention services a community can offer residents who are in danger of eviction is a transitional housing program. These programs help people hang on to their current residences or assist them in finding more affordable ones. The methods include steering people to appropriate social service and community agencies, helping them move out of shelters, and providing funds for rent, mortgage payments, and utilities. For information, contact the Homelessness Information Exchange at (202) 462-7551. [/align][*][align=center]Write to corporations - Some of the largest corporations in America have joined the battle for low-income housing. Through the use of the tax credit or by outright grants, they are participating with federal and state government, not-for-profit and community-based groups to build desperately needed housing in Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and dozens of other cities. Contact various organizations and ask them what they are doing. [/align][*][align=center]Contact your government representatives - Our legislators rarely receive more than three visits or ten letters about any subject. When the numbers exceed that amount, they sit up and take note. Personal visits are the most potent. Letters are next; telephone calls are third best. Housing issues don't come up that often, so your public officials will listen. [/align][*][align=center]Push for state homelessness prevention programs - While states routinely supply aid for the poor and homeless, many do not have programs provide funds and other services to those who will lose their homes in the immediate future unless something is done. Homelessness comes at great financial and human cost to the families who are evicted or foreclosed. [/align][/ol][align=center]Back to Giving Resources[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Click below 4 Source[/align][align=center][:-][/align][align=center]http://www.justgive.org/how-to-give/...p-homeless.jsp[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Thanks for reading my post topic.[/align][align=center]Be Happy to be free to be, and also have, and drive the AweSome[/align][align=center]Chevrolet Monte Carlo.[/align][align=center]Show your Thanks, by Giving back to those in need.[/align][align=center]Thank You ![/align]

 

[align=center]How can this happen in the land of Plenty ?[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]How can this happen in Mickey Mouse Country of[/align][align=center]Orange County, Florida ?[/align][align=center][:-]I share, cause I care [:-][/align][align=center][:-][/align][align=center][X(]Thousands Of Local Students Homeless, Hungry [X(]
November 2008 –
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. An estimated 2,500 Orange County students are homeless and hungry. And district officials believe that number grows almost daily.[X(][/b][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Click below for Story/Vid[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][:-][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]http://www.wftv.com/news/17982911/de...c&psp=news[/align][/align]


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[/align][align=center]Photo Essay[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]The Art Of Wishing[/align][align=center]Homeless children from Orlando, Fla. and Raleigh, N.C. turn their holiday dreams into art.[/align][align=center]
[/align][align=center]The Early Show[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Wishes For Kids Toy Drive[/align][align=center]Help make the holidays happier for youngsters by donating to our annual toy drive. CLICK HERE.[/align]

 

Thank you for educating us on the homeless Space. All TOO often we go about our lives forgetting how blessed we really are. I blame a LOT or most of this on our media in this country.

A personal observation:
We have become a country of whinners.

We whine about what we don't have.
We whine about how we got treated while growing up by our parents. (I didn't realize there was a handbook out there describing EVERY single situation you will run in to while raising a child)
We whine about what other's got, and we didn't.
All we see on TV is drama. Other people whinning about what happened here or there or who got something better thenthey got.

We all want a guarantee in life that we will live blessed lives with no pitfalls. No sorrow. No pain. And we will not have to work hard to get the things we want to make us happy.

Only by the grace of God is it we don't experience what the homeless do.

If you don't mind hearing a little story.
One day my g/f Deb & I were going to Auto Zone to buy something needed for one of our cars. BurgerKing is right next door to Auto Zone so I said, "Let's zip inside for some lunch while we're here."
There was a man standing behind BurgerKing with a sign in his hands: "Will work for food."
I told Deb I was going to offer to buy this man lunch. I wasn't going to give him money as I didn't want him buying alcohol with it, IF ...... that was infact his intent?
So I walked over to him and asked him to join us for lunch in BurgerKing. He said, "What work do you have for me?"
I told him we could discuss that later.
This infuriated him. He started calling me names. Said I pittied him and he didn't like pity. That I was judging him and it wasn't my place to judge him.
We had a few words back and forth. I tried to convince him I was trying to help out my fellow man. This seemed to make him even more angry.
In the end I left him standing where he was. I wasn't going to argue the point.

Some times you just can't please people.

 

[align=center]Hi R.J.,[/align][align=center]Thanks for your post, & I am sorry that you had a bad experience[/align][align=center]with a homeless person : ([/align][align=center][/align][align=center]With over 100 Million Homeless, I am sure there is a percentage[/align][align=center]that are not capable of dealing with others, or with life.[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]My grandfather taught me to give back, and he leads by example.[/align][align=center]I think it is great that we as American help many on planet [/align][align=center]`Earth, but I still believe that we should concentrate on helping[/align][align=center]our own home first, b-4 we donate billions to other countries.[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]I hope/pray our new Administration will lead by example, and[/align][align=center]not by force. That we as Americans find a way to take care of[/align][align=center]our own, and be an goodexample to other countries.[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]I hope that in our near future that Americans around our World[/align][align=center]we be respected, and not hated or attacked.[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]I know that I feel better when I help others...It is a great feeling.[/align][align=center]4-Sure[/align][align=center]Thanks for taking time from your life to post.[/align][align=center]Members like you make the Monte Carlo Family so much better.[/align][align=center]Peace/Out/Space[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]So many forget to say it...Talk/Words arecheap, without action.[/align][align=center]A person is only as good or bad, as the actions of their words...`amen[/align][align=center]

[IMG]local://upfiles/4301/5BAD0A0E079B4457A55D0692B7D27859.gif[/IMG] [/align]

 

Hi Space,

It's sad in this day and age anyone is left homeless. With all the resources in this country it's hard to believe anyone would be left to live on the streets.

My experience with this one man shouldn't affect how I feel about those less fortunate. And I don't think it will or has.

My g/f Debbie, her father was approached by a man once wanting change. He claimed to be hungry and wanting to buy food. Deb's father told the man he would be willing to buy him something to eat, but wouldn't give him money. He identified himself to this man as a Pastor and against consuming alcohol. He said the man declined his offer. I have to agree it would lead me to believe the man was considering buying alcohol with any money he collected.

 

 

Thank you very much for the informative thread Space!

 

 

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