Homeless….2
“Homeless is not a category of people. It’s just a situation that happens. It can happen to anyone.” – Salvador Altamirano-Segura
GENE ESTESS died in April at 78. Mr. Estess is best known for abandoning a lucrative career on Wall Street to aid the poor, mentally ill, addicted people, and homeless in Harlem and the South Bronx. He directed the Jericho Project, a Manhattan-based nonprofit for 18 years. The Jericho project serves about 1500 adults and children, including many military veterans by offering housing and other services.
MIZUNO USA, a running shoe manufacturer, is introducing a new campaign to encourage running. Mizuno will partner with Back On My Feet, a national nonprofit organization which works with the homeless to transform their lives through running. Later this year, Mizuno will donate a dollar to Back On My Feet, for every mile a person runs for a week.
DR. PHILIP BRICKNER, a physician who made housecalls, died recently. Dr. Brickner is best known for helping to develop ways to treat homeless people.
Dr. Brickner began his unique focus on medical care in the late 1960’s when he set up “free clinics” at hotels and other places where homeless people lived.
His innovations became the basis for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act of 1987. This act mandated medical services in shelters and food lines.
THE MISSION CONTINUES, a new organization composed of veterans returning from service in foreign wars, works to help fellow veterans. Service platoons now exist in approximately nine cities with plans to have service platoons in thirty cities by the end of 2014.
The 1st Platoon NYC is renovating housing for veterans and building a playground.
The 1st Platoon works with the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness by combing the streets for chronically homeless vets and registering them to get housing and other services.
ANDREA ELLIOTT of the New York Times was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her impressive series “Invisible Child,” about the homeless girl named Dasani.
JAMES BOYD, a homeless man camping in the Sandia foothills outside Albuquerque, NM, was shot and killed at a protest in March. Mr. Boyd was a mentally ill homeless man. His death was captured on video by a camera attached to a police officer’s helmet.
Mr. Boyd’s death brings focused attention on the growing number of severely mentally ill people who are living without mental health services.
JEROME MERDOUGH, a 56-year-old Marine – homeless and suffering from mental illness – died while in custody on Rikers Island in February, 2014. Mr. Murdough died after being left unattended in his cell for hours while the temperature there climbed above 100 degrees.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
