The Obama administration has quietly cut the number of homeless veterans in half.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Veteran homelessness has dropped nearly in half since 2010, thanks to partnerships and programming, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on Monday. 

On a given night in January, there were fewer than 40,000 homeless veterans, according to the country’s annual Point-in-Time count. That marked a 47 percent decrease since the same count was conducted six years prior. 

The success was due to the White House’s first-ever strategic plan to end veteran homelessness and a unique partnership between HUD and the Department of Veteran Affairs. Through the collaboration, HUD provides rental assistance to homeless veterans and the VA complements it with case management and clinical services. 

Since 2010, more than 360,000 veterans and their families have been permanently housed, rapidly rehoused or were spared from becoming homeless through HUD and VA programs. 

“The dramatic decline in veteran homelessness reflects the power of partnerships in solving complex national problems on behalf of those who have served our nation,” Robert A. McDonald, VA secretary, said in a statement. “The men and women who have fought for this nation should not have to fight to keep a roof over their head.”

Okay this is the kind of thing that both irritates me and impresses me about President Obama.

If Donald Trump did anything even a tenth this impressive he would be bragging about it on every network news show in the country, and having t-shirts printed that advertised his success.

On the other hand Obama mentions it in passing during a speech at the Disabled American Veterans convention, and a handful of news sites bother to share the news with the public.

You mark my words, after President Obama leaves office we are going to be amazed to learn all of the amazing things he did while in office that he did not bother to brag about in public.

In other news I think that Donald Trump managed to go pee pee in the big boy toilet all by himself.

Just in time for Christmas Christian homeless shelter in Kentucky throws out all of the women, Because, you know, the sex.

Courtesy of the Inquisitr:  

It doesn’t seem very Christ-like, but a Christian homeless shelter in Williamsburg, Kentucky has just taken the rash and uncharitable step of kicking out all female residents. Emergency Christian Ministries, the only homeless shelter in the city, has decided to evict the women currently living at the facility and ban further women from seeking shelter under its roof. The reason for the pre-Christmas removal of the shelter’s ladies? Sex, reports WYMT. The director of the Christian homeless shelter, Billy Woodward said that people are having sex at the shelter, and that behavior can’t be tolerated. 

The director of the Christian homeless shelter said that because the facility houses more men than women, it only makes sense to remove the women from the shelter. Over the last two weeks alone, around a dozen women were asked to leave. Those who were willing to be sheltered a half-hour away were relocated to a women’s-only shelter in Gray, Kentucky.

In addition to kicking out and banning women, the Christian homeless shelter has made the almost unbelievable decision to bar children in some cases, too. The reason? Some of them might be female or be living with a mother. When asked directly if the shelter would be willing to house children in any situation, Woodward replied, “Right now, no because of the female factor.” 

Well sure it makes perfect sense to kick out the women. After all if you read your Bible you know that it wasn't the man who got all corrupted by the serpent and suddenly wanted to do unspeakable things all over the Garden of Eden.

It was the chick.

Seriously though who in the hell kicks women and children out into the cold at Christmas time?

If only there were an allegorical story in some holy book about homeless people needing lodging on Christ's birthday.

Alaska's sole Congressman has a solution to the homeless problem, wolves.

"Got wolves?"

Courtesy of CBS News:  

Alaska Rep. Don Young has settled on a novel solution to the problem of homelessness: wolves. Young, a long-serving Republican with a history of odd commentary, discussed the idea during an exchange on Thursday with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who was testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee about her department's budget. 

Young has been pushing for the Interior Department to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list, and during the hearing, he ridiculed a letter sent by 79 lawmakers to Jewell urging her to protect the gray wolf population. "How many of you have got wolves in your district?" 

Young asked the other lawmakers on the panel. "None. Not one." 

"They haven't got a damn wolf in their whole district," he added. "I'd like to introduce them in your district. If I introduced them in your district, you wouldn't have a homeless problem anymore."

I swear we elect politicians in Alaska based simply on how embarrassing they might be to the state. 

You know I really hate to argue with the Congressman, but we have wolves in Alaska. Including some that venture into the Anchorage bowl itself where most of our homeless congregate.

And yet we have a homeless population that is ranked among the top ten highest in America.

Not that it needed to be said, but his "solution" is both ridiculous and inhumane. Sort of like Don Young himself.

By the way I am not even sure that Young knows what he is saying anymore. I think he is more than likely suffering from some form of dementia or Alzheimer's. 

Not that that is any excuse.

Sarah Palin is going to bore chilly homeless people in Las Vegas tomorrow. At least I think I read that right.

Courtesy of the Las Vegas Sun:

Conservative pundit and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be in Las Vegas on Thursday to promote a new television show and serve food at a local Salvation Army. 

The former Alaska governor and reality TV star is partnering with the Sportsman Channel for the Hunt.Fish.Feed program — the channel’s outreach effort to help curb hunger in America. 

With the help of police officers and military veterans, Palin will be dishing up wild boar chili from 4 to 6 pm. at the Salvation Army at 35 West Owens Ave. The channel says its program has served meals to 25,000 people in 40 cities. 

The channel dubs Palin, who has entrenched herself in punditry and popular culture after her failed vice presidential bid, as the “First Lady of the Outdoors.” She is well known for her love of shooting and other outdoor activities. She has her own show on the Sportsman Channel: Amazing America with Sarah Palin.

Oh I get it now.

Sorry, just the idea of Sarah Palin doing anything for the less fortunate, even as a promotion for her crappy reality program, is just really hard for my brain to digest.

You just have to know that the idea of serving boar meat chili is a desperate attempt to lend credibility to Palin's faux pig slaying on Nugent's wildlife farm by the way.

And speaking of laughable this whole idea of Palin being the "First Lady of the Outdoors" is ROFL worthy.  This woman despises the outdoors and can only cope with it if she has certain creature comforts provided for her.

You know like staying in a camper, having fresh coffee brought to her around the clock, and having all of the menial tasks like fishing, cooking, and building a fire done by somebody else.

You all do remember this episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" where she could barely manage to scramble up some rocks without a climbing harness and constant encouragement from the crew, right?

The only thing rugged about Sarah Palin is the skin around her neck.

You good news story of the day. George Zimmerman's life in ruins, fearfully wears bulletproof vest in public, and is essentially homeless.

From the English translation of an interview that Zimmerman gave to Univision, and reported here courtesy of the Sun Sentinel:  

In the interview, Zimmerman repeatedly declines to answer questions about the shooting, citing a still-pending federal civil-rights investigation. 

However, he tells Calderón that his first reaction after firing the shot was concern that he had missed. 

"I was afraid it had gone through his clothes and that it was going to go ... get lost, and, um, you know, go into a house and — because the young man was still talking to me, as I have said. So I thought that it hadn't … affected him, and I got worried, and I said, 'I hope that it hasn't — that the bullet hasn't hit a neighbor,'" Zimmerman says. "But I only knew that the attack stopped." 

Zimmerman describes receiving death threats, which he attributes to the portrayal of the shooting in the media. 

"You don't think it's because of the fact that you fired [a] gun?" Calderón asks. 

"Correct. No, obviously not," replies Zimmerman, noting that other shootings get less media attention. 

Later in the interview, Zimmerman tells Calderón that he was "100 percent" sure of his actions on the night of the shooting. Trayvon would have killed him if he hadn't opened fire, Zimmerman says. 

"I know that for sure, yes," he tells Calderón.

So his first reaction was fear that he had not murdered the unarmed teenager, and now believes the anger toward him is due to biased media reporting? What a POS.

Zimmerman also discusses the recently cancelled pay-per-view fight: 

The plans for a fight, he says, "transformed into something that is not right."

Yeah, I'm sure that in Zimmerman's opinion what's "not right" is that he was going to be facing a  fully grown adult without benefit of a gun to protect him from the beating he would surely have received.

And how is Georgie Porgy doing these days?  

Zimmerman goes on to say that he can't have a "normal life," wears a bulletproof vest when in public and doesn't have a permanent home. He says that his family helps him "a lot." "I'm totally homeless," Zimmerman says. Later, Calderón asks how he has changed since the shooting: "I suffer from PTSD," Zimmerman replies.

You know what? Good!

And maybe Zimmerman can serve as a cautionary tale for all of those 2nd Amendment assholes who think they can murder a theater goer for texting during the credits, or a teenager for playing loud music on their car stereos, that maybe they will get away with it, but that does not mean they will live without suffering the consequences of their behaviors.

This shit has to stop! We cannot turn into a nation that solves its problems by shooting first and asking questions later.

This is how President Obama "played the race card" yesterday while celebrating MLK Day.

President Obama and daughter Sasha volunteer at DC Central Kitchen charity.

Michelle and Malia rolling burritoes.

As you can see the entire family was spreading racism through the distribution of Mexican burritos to an ethnically mixed group of homeless, and under privileged people.

The gall!

On the complete opposite side of the coin Sarah Palin weathered a well deserved firestorm of anger and ridicule for her hateful remarks yesterday.

In fact I don't think I have seen such universal revulsion directed at Palin since her now famous blood libel video came out.

If I were the owners of the Sportsman channel I would have been sending Palin e-mail after e-mail telling her to shut up and sit down before she drives away every potential viewer imaginable for her new "I'm pretending I know something about hunting" show.

Not that it would have helped. Some people's hatred is simply too ingrained in their personality for them to ever let go of it.

(Photos courtesy of The Obama Diary.)

New definition for heartless: Throw a Halloween themed party at the expense of those your law firm threw out into the streets.

Courtesy of TPM:

A New York Times opinion column from Joe Nocera out on Saturday tells the story of last year’s Halloween Party at the law firm called Steven J. Baum, a practice outside Buffalo that the column refers to as a “foreclosure mill.” The firm thought that they would celebrate last Halloween by throwing a homeless-themed party, complete with the staff dressing costumes that made them look destitute and signs describing the various faux problems their characters had. One sign seems to read “Will Worke For Food [sic]” and photos show part of an office named “Baum Estates.” 

The pictures were sent to Nocera by a former employee of the firm. Nocera described their conversation like this: 

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose.

This firm in particular seems to have quite a history of foreclosing on homes that they had NO right to foreclose on.

I guess we should really not be that surprised to learn they thought so little of the people whose lives they destroyed that they would mock them by throwing a party, the theme of which was built around the devastation that they so callously visited upon them.

Hopefully Karma is paying attention.

The new heavy handed Gestapo techniques of Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan have reached the pages of the New York Times.

The police and social service providers say Anchorage has as many as 400 people they call “chronic public inebriates,” with up to 25 percent of them regarded as the most difficult cases. This year, after the deaths of at least 13 homeless people since the spring, there has been a widespread sense that the city’s response has been inadequate and must change.

The new mayor, Dan Sullivan, a Republican, has created a staff position and a task force devoted to addressing homelessness. The police recently gained the authority to dismantle homeless encampments with just 12 hours’ notice. Citizen groups are patrolling parks where homeless camps have been the site of rapes and other violence. But in perhaps the biggest and most controversial break from how the city has handled the problem in the past, a Salvation Army detoxification and alcohol abuse treatment center has begun accepting chronic inebriates who have been taken there essentially by force.

With $1.2 million in new state financing pushed through by one of Alaska’s more liberal Democrats, State Senator Johnny Ellis of Anchorage, the facility, the Clitheroe Center, is accepting people committed under a state law, Title 47. Under the law, a judge can order people into secure treatment for 30 days, and potentially for months, if the police, a doctor or family members convince the judge that the person’s abuse of alcohol has made them a threat to themselves and others. The person does not need to have committed a crime.

“Ten years ago, there would have been a community outcry that Johnny Ellis is locking up people with the disease of addiction,” Mr. Ellis said. “ ‘How can he do that and say he’s still a progressive?’ ” (He can't.)

Now, Mr. Ellis said, the problem has increased so much “that for various motivations people are saying let’s try something new.” He added, “The people dropping dead during the summertime really got this community paying attention.”

Before I even start shoveling through this pile of shit I have to admit that the problem of homeless people walking around drunk in public and dying around Anchorage is older than I am. I cannot remember a time when I did not see native Alaskans sprawled out in city parks passed out, or saw them asking bystanders for money. Sadly it is as Alaskan as seeing moose walking across our neighborhood streets.

And I am well aware that Anchorage Mayors in the past have made attempts to solve this problem. During his two terms from 1981 to 1987, Mayor Tony Knowles closed down a number of seedy bars along Fourth Avenue, where public intoxication was a daily occurrence. Sadly this essentially moved the problem from downtown to midtown.

Mayor Tom Fink fared no better. A Blue Ribbon Panel in 1980, appointed by then Mayor Tom Fink, described the problem of public inebriates as “intolerable”. They went on to call for more aggressive law enforcement, and a process to help reduce the visibility of the problem in Anchorage. They also pointed out that the services provided should be “minimal and humanitarian”, and that treatment opportunities should be available to those who want them.

And as we now know the problem did NOT get better, in fact it worsened.

From a 2007 "Program Update for the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority":

Current estimates put the serious chronic public inebriate population at 200 – 250. An August 31, 2005 UAA/Behavioral Health Research Services (UAA/BHRS) report that considered data between 1997 and 2005 pointed out that “approximately 150 individuals account for nearly 60% of the total number of visits” to the ( Community Service Patrol) Transfer Station. It is worth noting that, based on our current Top 10 & Top 50 listings, that the “serious” number is more like 75 - 100 individuals who account for that 60%. While this number remains somewhat of a moving target, it does make clear the fact that a very large part of our problem is brought on by a very small group of people. Until we find a way to keep this small group from “making their problem our problem” they will continue to chip away at our resources in an extremely disproportionate manor. It is also important to remember that this group, to a large degree, ignores, refuses, or in fact runs away from any treatment opportunities that we currently offer.

The UAA report went on to point out some of the demographics of our clients. Approximately 90% of the clients using the Transfer Station are Alaska Native, which is disproportionate relative to 7% of the city’s total population which is Alaska Native. When you consider only the top 10 or top 50 users, you find that nearly 100% are Alaska Native. Men also account for 70% of the clients, and 63% are between 35 and 54 years of age.

Part of the problem is that more and more Alaska Natives are moving into Anchorage from rural areas with very few prospects and a lack of the kind of educational background or employment history that makes them competitive in the urban job market. Though there is an effort to change that.

In the villages they have few job opportunities, live in sub-standard housing, and due to the merciless restrictions placed on their ability to live their subsistence lifestyle (Though it looks like the Obama administration might be working toward fixing that.), have nothing to take their minds off of their difficulties. Which leads to chronic alcoholism and substance abuse.

Multiply that with the fact that many villagers damn near died last winter, and it is not hard to understand why they are ending up on our street corners and in homeless camps throughout our city.

But razing the homeless camps that spring up, right before winter hits, is certainly not going to save lives or solve this problem.

"If our goal really is to stop people from camping out, is taking their sleeping bag going to do that or is it simply going to mean we're going to have an extra five or six that die of exposure this year?" said the Rev. Michael Burke, rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church on Tudor Road.

And neither is forcing them into overcrowded treatment facilities and taking their stuff. (I cannot help but think that if these were camps filled with homeless white people that the approach to the problem would be significantly different.)

Believe it or not, and you will rarely hear me say this, I have sympathy for Mayor Dan Sullivan (and to a lesser degree State Senator Johnny Ellis). This is a REAL problem that affects, not just the homeless, but the business leaders and residents of this city. I get it, it sucks! But what the mayor is doing will not solve anything!

Oh it may make some of his business buddies happy, and it will get people off of his back for not addressing the problem at all, but it will not make one bit of difference in the long run. It just won't.

You see forcing a person into a treatment facility only works if they can continue to receive treatment on an out-patient basis afterward. In other words if they go right back to being homeless, jobless, and living on the streets, they will have NO reason to live a life of sobriety. Without a soft place to land after going through the pain of detoxification and the humiliation of being locked up, how do you help a person make a healthy choice for their future?

This is just a big show with very little value except the headlines it garners and the business leaders it mollifies. But the homeless camps that are being destroyed will simply crop up someplace else, and the inebriates in treatment right now will be out stumbling along our city streets in no time at all.

The problem is too big for this mayor, or to be fair, ANY mayor. It is statewide issue, not a city issue. It is in fact Governor Parnell's problem. Which actually IS a problem because, much like Dan Sullivan, he also seems to see it as a law enforcement issue.

This is not an issue of more enforcement. It is an issue of respect.

The natives of Alaska are among the most resilient, self reliant people on the planet. They have not only survived, but prospered, in a climate so profoundly dangerous that in the dead of winter it can kill a man in a matter of minutes. And they did that without benefit of electricity, indoor plumbing, gas stoves, firearms, or even a neighborhood McDonalds. They did it when there were no roads or airplanes to bring them supplies, without doctors and medicine close by, and without telephones or radios to maintain communication.

They did it by understanding and respecting their environment in ways that Caucasians never will. You see the Alaskan natives did not change Alaska to fit their idea of what it should be. They learned to adapt to their environment until they became part of it.

They did not "own" property. They did not pave over the tundra, or raze whole forests to build a subdivision. They honored the animals they hunted, and which sacrificed their lives to feed their families back in the village, and danced to honor their spirit. They never sought to dominate the world around them, only to exist among the other creatures that called this land their home.

The Europeans who came here called that "savage", and labeled them "primitive". And that is still the way that many whites see them today.

The majority of Alaskan natives have assimilated well to a culture that is not of their own making and that they did not ask to join. They had it thrust upon them and were punished by the government for speaking their own language and attempting to preserve their way of life. (You can learn much more about this travesty by watching the film "For the Rights of All" when it is shown on PBS in November. I saw it at the AFN convention and was moved to tears.)

The problem of public inebriates and homelessness in Anchorage will not be solved until either the people in the villages have REAL job opportunities, or their right to live their subsistence lifestyle is fully restored to them, which means that by-catch does not steal the fish from their freezers and their ability to hunt is not limited to government regulated hunting seasons.

It is too late to undo the damage that the Europeans have done to the native culture in the last 200+ years, but we can start to make amends by respecting them enough to treat the reason (no jobs, lack of direction) behind their incredibly high rate of alcoholism rather than the symptom (homelessness, public drunkenness).

And while they are in our fair city perhaps we could help finance some additional short term shelters for these desperate people rather than to destroy the only homes they have and throw away everything they have in the world. These are human beings in pain, not sheep to be rounded up and herded out of the public line of sight.

Winter will soon be here, and if nobody does anything substantial about this problem there will be more deaths from exposure than in any other year in the past. Count on it.