No Fixed Address
“No Fixed Address” is dedicated to those in our country with no roof over their heads. See your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, in new ways as they describe their daily lives in their own words.
The people in this new book reveal themselves to be both brave and fearless as they go about their activities: work, laundry, children’s homework, appointments. Mostly they live like the rest of us. They just have no roof over their heads.
“No Fixed Address” is my newest book in the Unworthy Hungry series. It’s easy to read and understand. You won’t be bored, not even for a minute.
I hope you’ll order it today. Get an extra copy for a friend!
This book has an extra surprise. When you get a copy, you’ll be making a donation to a good cause. You’ll be fighting hunger and homelessness.
It doesn’t get much better than that!
Thank you for reading this article!
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Thurman Greco
Writing this Blog Post was Risky
Writing this blog post was risky. In the early days I worried about peoples’ opinions. I wrote my first blog entries with skeptics in mind. On some level it was important to me for pantry deniers to understand that there are, indeed, hungry people around us
One day I saw clearly that some people aren’t going to like me or my work. Nor are they going to believe what I write, no matter what I say. Once I realized that truth, I knew I’d been wasting energy on other people’s opinions.
I’m no longer interested in convincing anyone about what it means to go to bed hungry.
I’m okay with people saying anything about me because I know the chapters I write are true. The words I write make a difference in peoples’ lives.
This blog is about people creating better lives for themselves while not having enough to eat and lacking proper healthcare, housing.
This blog is about healing and creating new opportunities in one’s life. This blog is about people changing their lives – against all odds.
While I tell this story, I know some people won’t believe a word. It’s okay. I have my story and they have their story.
Food and sex and money are three words and issues more concerned with a person’s core beliefs, emotions, and spiritual attitudes than anything else.
These three words offer rules for everyone. We each have core beliefs around them with opinions about what is okay and what isn’t okay. We have attitudes about food, sex, and money based on what we were taught by family members and peers when we were children. We live our lives based on those experiences. Reduced to their lowest common denominator, these words – food, sex, and money – are the same. They touch core beliefs in ways going straight to the heart and soul.
The food pantry was all about food and money. The sex part was limited, but still there. Sex happened in the pantry hallway line when a shopper suffering with mental illness, a handsome young man who lived in another world, masturbated in the food line.
Our attitudes, opinions, feelings about feeding hungry people are or are not based on facts, statistics, or reality. Nor will facts, statistics, information, change attitudes.
Finally, we all have beliefs about who it’s okay to feed and who it’s not okay to feed. My beliefs are based on life experiences, facts, statistics. Their beliefs are based on the same. I may have taken classes, gone to therapy. And, they may have also.
Their reality about what is okay and my reality about what is okay differ.
In the food pantry hallway, we all looked at the same people and saw different things. This situation is proof positive we each create our own reality about hungry people. Nothing changes either reality. We each see hungry people through lenses shaped by separate life experiences. Hungry people don’t live in two realities.
As the lines got longer, we looked at people in the line. I saw hungry people and they didn’t. I interacted with people weekly who dumpster-dived to feed themselves as well as their children, parents, housemates. Occasionally I read articles about the ethics of dumpster diving. I didn’t think we could explore the ethics of allowing people go hungry because they couldn’t make enough money at their jobs to buy the food they needed to live and work.
People coming to a food pantry can take a three-day-supply of food home each week. The other four days, they’re on their own. That means they can buy more food if they have a SNAP card and if they can get to a store selling food. If they don’t have the money or a SNAP card, they get creative or go hungry. This involves panhandleing, borrowing money or food from friends, relatives, neighbors. They can steal, dumpster-dive, drop in at someone’s house at mealtime, and skip meals.
“Thurman is out of control over at the food pantry” described the local vicar because of the number of people shopping at the pantry and the amount of food they took home.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please refer it to your favorite social media network.
Thurman Greco
If Only….
Janet Poppendieck wrote a book entitled “Sweet Charity” about hunger in America. I found a quote of hers on the internet which inspired this post.
There’s all this food out there. Most people who know about hunger agree that there’s enough food for everyone. If we can stop the push back on this concept, and just feed the people, our lives (everyone’s lives in the whole country) will be very different. Imagine a world without hungry children and grandmothers.
Just for a moment, let’s think of all the ways we can benefit our many people and institutions by using this food.
For starters, think of pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, halfway houses as our tax dollars at work. Much of the emergency food effort is manned by volunteers diverting food headed for the landfill. For my $$$, this recycling effort works primarily to keep people from starving in the streets.
Now, consider the United States Department of Agriculture. As our country accumulates agricultural surpluses, instead of being embarrassed by the food, life will be better when the USDA proudly distributes the surplus to those in need. After all, surplus food is an uptown problem. It’s almost impossible to produce only exactly what we need. Farms just don’t work that way. Weather doesn’t always cooperate. Droughts don’t come by request. Floods have minds of their own. It’s better to produce too much than too little.
Businesses can and should ship excess food to pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, halfway houses. This is a responsible way to dispose of unwanted excess food products. When businesses donate to food banks, they avoid excessive dump fees and accrue tax savings. They reduce dumpster diving.
Universities, hospitals, caterers, restaurants, bakers, schools, can use the food banks to absorb leftovers. In metropolitan areas, the surplus food can go directly to soup kitchens, pantries. This is both a civic responsibility and community outreach.
Community colleges and Universities can recognize that there are impoverished students in their ranks. Pantries and soup kitchens on campus will make it easier for these students to stay in school.
Elementary, Middle, and High Schools will do well to recognize the poverty among the students and staff. Food pantries have a definite place in schools. Backpack programs belong in every school to ensure that students have enough food to eat over the weekends and holidays.
Churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions have opportunities to express concern for their fellow man as they include the poor at the table. Congregations refer to their feeding efforts as outreach. These necessary hunger prevention programs help feed people who otherwise would not have enough to eat and they give the congregations a local outlet for their charity and outreach programs.
Courts and penal institutions can use this concept by having people work service hours at pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, etc. to avoid or lessen incarceration.
Working at a pantry, soup kitchen or shelter provides service opportunities for people of all ages. The more people donate time, the less isolated these facilities become.
Diverting food from landfills offers communities an opportunity to improve our environment. Besides, why throw away good food?
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Thurman Greco
An Open Letter to Tomo Jacobson
Thanks so much for writing to Chuck Klosterman of the New York Times about dumpster diving. I appreciate your stand that dumpster diving is moral. I also like your question about whether it is ethically wrong to dumpster dive. I never thought much about the ethics of dumpster diving before.
As a food pantry coordinator, I interact with people every week who dumpster dive to feed themselves as well as their children, parents, and housemates. We can’t explore the ethics of dumpster diving without exploring the ethics of allowing people in our country to go hungry because they can’t make enough $$$ at their jobs to buy food.
People who come to the Reservoir Food Pantry take a 3-day supply of food home to wherever and whatever that is each week. The other 4 days, they’re on their own.
That means they can buy the food if they have a SNAP card and if they can get to a store selling food. If they don’t have either the $$$ or a SNAP card, then they must get creative. That involves:
Panhandling
Borrowing $$$ from friends, relatives, neighbors
Showing up at someone’s house (friend, relative, neighbor) at mealtime
Sending the children to someone’s house (friend, relative, neighbor) at mealtime
Stealing and (of course),
Dumpster Diving.
In Woodstock, NY, where I live, a beloved neighbor named Cassia Berman routinely went dumpster diving for greens (kale, chard, collards). Cassia was on the library board and taught Qigung at the community center. She never made a fortune, certainly not enough to buy organic produce at the Sunflower Natural Foods Market.
Cassia felt good nutrition was her best defense against illness. I was always grateful for Cassia’s attitude. She brought class to the whole hunger scene.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
