Justin Beiber pawned for pawning homeless

This last month for singer Justin Beiber was a mix of social mishaps online. Locally another man with the same name had his Facebook page removed with no reasonable explanation given, it's believed by many Facebook believed HE was masquerading online as the young entertainer.

But recently Beiber; the singer, not the local; posted material on Youtube.com that THEY pulled for copyright infringement, video material of his "Pray" which includes spotlights of some of his charitable work with the homeless.

It's reported that Beiber vented towards Youtube.com on Twitter.com he'd be taking his material to Facebook...obviously THEY know who he is. According to varying sources money made from the album "Pray" will be on are going towards the Children's Miracle Network hospital system.

Granted, while many discount his depiction and portrayal of the homeless as using them...I tend to see the light where he's trying to build awareness. Individual acts of charity are easily camouflaged by quick dollar attempts, so it's fair to say that if Beiber 'were' exploiting the homeless it would show rather quickly in his work ethic and delivery in short time.

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Old style catalogs in a new age way

Decades ago as a child I remember my family receiving different catalogs by mail or local representatives. It was such a rural area that sometimes they were collected or requested by other family members as outhouse reading, then recycled when the going got tough at times.

Items varied by vendor. Some such as Sears went in mainstream marketing while others seemed to target female clothing such as pedal pushers. I remember some having pages of what others would consider 'house clutter' that would be picked over by little old ladies in search of bric-brac items. My stepfather was inclined to auto-parts and gun catalogs...you have to remember this was a different time and place.

The biggest difference between now and then? Chances are if a person's online they're not going to be recycling the catalogs as my aunt did decades ago. I also never saw anyone experiencing homelessness flipping through their pages as I had seen family and friends years ago, then again these were items usually found on coffee or dining room tables.

Having them available no different than copies of donated Cosmopolitan or other typically donated periodicals, I wonder 'which' a person experiencing homelessness would choose to pick up and lose themselves in...a larger magazine for being 'all that' or a smaller one with things a person could realistically want and hope for when getting off the streets.

While one man's trash is often another man's treasure it makes me wonder if service providers would see the therapeutic impact of accepting mail order catalogs be placed in their common areas of people served. Let's face it, homeless women need all the help they can get looking good when getting out of being 'out'. If you have mail order catalogs from Blair or other nationally known vendors, consider asking your church to collect and recycle them by donating them to a local service provider.

Beats having to ask someone if they want a year's supply for their outhouse, doesn't it?

Out of homeless, now what?

Some of the biggest hurdles people breaking the cycle of homeless have to overcome are transportation issues. While many cities 'do' have local bus transit, in most cases they're not as suited to the needs of the majority of residents as local municipalities would like people to think.

I was contacted by one of my third party agents to take a look at "The Car Connection", specifically their Audi S4, GMC Acadia, and Toyota 4Runner pages, as well as more info regarding vehicles.

The site itself is colorful and impressive, but I quickly got lost in the amount of information overload...I didn't know where to go...what was internal content or what was advertising as well. The Audi page loaded with advertising for Ford vehicles on the right and Mazda banners on the left.

Don't get me wrong, I think this site IS of merit for consumers, and by all means I DO recommend any of my readers to use such sites before making purchases for the sake of saving money. However, the site 'does' have a few things it could do to improve delivery:

1. Redesign the site layout. We all know free sites are kept running by advertising. Moving the advertising to one side or the other will allow visitors to consider such as well as allow them to maintain focus on the reason they came their...the content.

2. Rework the graphics. While the picture of the Audi 'is' beautiful, it's 80K in size. I maintain a standard rule to keep my page loads on any site to 30K, total. This page's 'weight' is over 667K inclusive of all the content.

Good information for prospective viewers, but service delivery online...the site potentially can lose repeat visitors due to page load as well as those that have set limits on data plans.

Thanksgiving

This year being one that my children spent with their mother I chose this holiday to spend looking at things I'm thankful for. Holidays are a wonderful time for family and friends, but having done so for decades I wanted to take the time of self reflection alone and look afar for a better view of things. The occasional overshoe alone on the sidewalk path without it's mate too often the subject of my thoughts this last year regarding people experiencing homelessness.

This month's prior session of Congress in which Extended Unemployment Benefits was declined moving forward and upcoming potential for arguments prior to them running out for millions isn't something the locals are talking about. I haven't heard anyone bring it up in discussion oddly, rather choosing to see how and when the service providers locally will begin reacting. They're in a festive mood soliciting the help from locals and preparing what they can to those they serve...who am I to rain on their parade.

But there's always the day after. The time from Black Friday until Christmas Eve, at some point the next drive occurring. The winter festival months are the bonanza period for providers to market. And yet I still look at the numbers of people not served as happily the rest of the year.

This year I am thankful for what I have, present...past...and to come.

Reader writes

I get tons of emails both here at this site and my other site with questions shot from the hips of readers. While I don't believe any question genuinely asked isn't ignorant, I 'do' get a chuckle sometimes when I'm asked to answer something that a person could have come to know if they'd looked to their own self wisdom.

I got this one email that amounted to asking about how to reduce belly fat while experiencing homelessness. It was well written and I thought it deserved mention.

Dear Reader,

I can't answer your question as asked.

If your friend has issue, my best recommendation would be to direct her to the closest available service provider she can get access to readily.

But if 'she' had asked me...I would have said the same thing as well as added relating my own experiences to her, since there'd be a chance of similar backgrounds between us. I think you asking with the interest of helping your friend regarding available resources is admirable, but in the end you are living in a home while she is not.

You're not doing her any good by doing the legwork of looking for help for her.

She needs to do this.

And let's face it...if you 'were' to get a job as a case manager for a homeless service provider, there is no way they would allow you to provide service delivery to any friend...it's called a conflict of interest.

By your words your choice of action to 'do anything to help her' and relating she's sitting on a park bench while you're fielding phone calls 5 hours a day...she needs to get off that bench and go sit in line until she gets seen for services.

On a bench in the park for days, weeks, and then years...or in a chair in a waiting room until she is eventually seen. I have known hundreds of people who have walked away from those waiting rooms to go back to the park...and never broke homelessness.

The ones that stay in the waiting room are the ones that get out of the cycle.

In short you need to let her do what she can for herself rather than talking for her. All she needs to do is open her mouth.

You wonder where the money went

With the upcoming 'lame duck' sessions getting ramped up for Congress, many people are wondering if they're Unemployment Benefits will be extended by Congress. Millions have been out of work since the Summer of 2009 having a hard time with maintaining homes.

The cost of rent, utilities, food...and in many cases people are gleaning over these bills and attempting to negotiate with creditors, get a better insurance quote...things that many hadn't done regularly in the past.

In the Summer of 2010, Congress took some time. After this recent midterm election it's not known if the decision to extend Emergency Benefits or create additional Tiers will be accepted, let alone 'when'. This translates into additional potential for already strained service delivery in the next upcoming month for homeless service providers.

Jacksonville Salvation Needing Help This Holiday

The Salvation Army has been ramped up for Northeast Florida to start preparing for this year's Thanksgiving Food Boxes and Thanksgiving Homeless Meal held on November 25th. Their main needs are local purchased turkeys and cash donations.

You can take your birds and money to their Salvation Army Towers Memorial Social Services Center, located at 900 W. Adams St. Their mailing address for checks to Salvation Army of Northeast Florida, P.O Box 52508 Jacksonville, Florida 32201.

A new couch

Written by Shannon Tillman

After 9 great years, I finally decided to spring for a brand new couch. My old couch is one of those really old ones that springs out into a bed if you pull off the cushions. While it was convenient for when my family or friends stopped over, I can't imagine that it was comfortable and the brown upholstery had seen better days. The thing about that couch is that it is fairly soft and comfortable - plus it isn't that heavy so it is easy to move if the situation called for it to do so.

I usually prefer to get my furniture at Levitz, but since the one in my city appeared to have closed down, I decided to check out the couches over at Ikea and Bed, Bath & Beyond. I was looking for one of those pleather couches that have the ability to recline, but if it was comfortable I would overlook those things.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find something to my liking so I headed over to the mall where I checked out the couches from both Macy's and JC Penney's. I finally found a brown leather couch that was perfect and ordered it then and there. They said that it would be shipped from their warehouse the following day. After getting home I sat down on my couch one final time to watch some satellite TV from BestChoiceTV.com.

Where are the clothes in your neighborhood?

Cold weather is coming and I sometimes look back on the varying time periods service delivery was positive and negative on the part of service providers over the years of people experiencing homelessness.

I've seen points where companies were proactive finding solutions to storing items donated. I've seen at times them arrange for third parties with thrift stores to accept them in trade for sending clients of the original with clothing vouchers.

I've also seen employees walk out the back door with armloads of items claimed to be going to people moved out...when it wasn't so and for their own consumption.

This year with the cold coming up, by all means DO consider Hats and Caps for people less fortunate. But at the same time don't be intimidated or fall into feeling guilty when asking what people do to get things into the hands of others intended on your part.

Will these items be given directly to people staying at your agency?

One misconception many have regarding 'third party' agreements where one agency pushes off items to another in trade for the first agency's clients to receive clothes at the second's thrift store...oh, it happens...but not the way you think.

The good donated items are BOUGHT by people for the thrift store to make money.

What's usually left for the homeless to select from...it usually looks like it was worn by someone homeless to begin with.

Think about it. Worse case, you can always drive up to a shelter of your choice and hand out items directly to passers by.

At least you'll know where your things are really going. And trust me...I 'have' seen thrift stores that resell their unsold items for overseas sales. When that happens, you can bet someone made some money...sending bales of clothes overseas doesn't come cheap!

Everyone wants me to vote for them

And it gets ridiculous sometimes when elections come around. Walking up to my local voting place, I took a moment to note that one candidate's sidewalk sign sat directly between the roadway the 'Vote Here' sign in front of where I was to cast my ballot.

Along the way I spotted tons of one candidates placards plastering the roadway in front of my library. Like...you really just put a reason 'not' to vote for you in my community, sir.

Going through the choices was simple enough, the technical wording in some of what people are trying to get passed was enough for me to say 'no'. While I'm no 'naysayer', I do feel some of the wording allows things other voters don't take the time to think about and let pass.

That's why there's such a thing as 'Technical Writers'. I did vote on pushing the Federal Government to not raise taxes without having a balanced budget...for what it's worth. I also did a 'write in' vote this year.

Only problem is I didn't register as a write in candidate prior. There's always next year. It'll give me time to practice my Nixon peace sign displays and kissing babies.

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