6A
NEWS
A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. U. V. W. X. Y. Z.
THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008
HOMELESS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
Benjamin Pierce, left, and two traveling companions silently solicit donations from passersby in downtown Lawrence in mid-October. Lawrence is a common waystation for youths hitchhiking cross-country during the warmer months of the year. In 2005, Lawrence implemented laws intended to curb aggressive panhandling. In November, the Lawrence City Commission revisited the law at the request of downtown business owners, who think the continuing prevalence of panhandling is discouraging shopper from visiting the area.
Michael Tanner, a street musician who lived in the encampment and who later complained about the site's destruction to the City Commission, said the buildings could house as many as 50 people.
One week later, after posting 24 hours notice in the preserve, city crews destroyed the camp. They hauled out enough building materials, bicycles and other possessions to fill a dump truck. The camp's residents scattered.
In the week between the camp's discovery and its destruction, a third man, John Walters, 59, was found dead about a quarter-mile west of the restoration preserve beneath the Kansas River bridge.
Walters had apparently died of natural causes, in the sense that a 59-year-old man dying under a bridge on a night when the temperature dipped to 27 degrees is natural.
In November, the City Commission discussed ordinances to further restrict both panhandling downtown and overnight camping in public areas such as the restoration preserve, the signature behaviors of the homeless in Lawrence.
As the Midwestern weather turned colder, the three deaths, the destruction of the homeless city and the commission debate gave Lawrence's homeless something they rarely had; visibility.
--ly contacted within a single period of time, and they must be willing to be interviewed.
According to a 2007 survey, Lawrence has a homeless population of about 300, which includes at least 100 children. The "point-in-time" survey is a bi-annual requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gathering data through interviews conducted in a single 24-hour period.
— about half of which are families with children.
Privately, some put the city's homeless population closer to 400
Two weaknesses of the HUD survey method is that it counts only individuals who can be directly contacted within a single period of time, and they must be willing to be interviewed.
Against the backdrop of Lawrence's total population, currently estimated at more than 88,500 by the U.S. Census Bureau, the
number of homeless seems insignificant.
When measured against the census population data for the downtown 66044 zip code, where most of the city's homeless congregate, approximately one out of every 100 downtowners is homeless.
But when measured against the census population data for the downtown 66044 zip code,where most of the city's homeless congregate, approximately one out of every 100 downtowners is homeless.
The National Coalition for the Homeless describes the primary cause of homelessness as "a growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty." Beyond poverty and rent, the coalition lists four contributing causes of homelessness: lack of affordable health care, domestic violence, mental illness and addiction disorders.
Beyond these factors are the people themselves.
Five days a week, Catherine's day begins at 4:30 a.m. when the shelter's night monitor rises from his desk and nudges her awake. Later, he'll do it again for others needing wakeup calls. Some are day laborers at construction sites. Others do lawn maintenance or repetitive assembly-line labor. For
Catherine, 48, unfurls her blankets and rises from the vinyl on the linoleum floor. The goal is to get up, get coffee, get showered and get out the door without disturbing any of the 30 other people sleeping in the homeless shelter.
Catherine, it's custodial work at a hotel and classes at the University of Kansas.
Because time management is key, she already has her books with her. At shift's end, she catches a bus from downtown to campus, where she lives out the other half of her life, as a KU student enrolled in six hours of undergraduate study. Catherine usually spends the remainder of the day in one of the KU libraries before returning to the shelter.
"By eight o'clock, I'm just ready to be done." Catherine says. "I study as late as I can, but then it's lights-out at 10 around here, so that's pretty much that."
Catherine, who's been staying at the shelter since early August, was the proverbial American one pay-check away from disaster. When
she lost her job in May, Catherine ended up losing both her apartment and most of her possessions by the end of the summer. Friends offered what they could — $50 here, $50 there — but with rent at more than $500 plus utilities, it wasn't enough.
"Like anyone would, I was pretty much scrambling," Catherine says.
Although she has two sisters in other states and a brother in Kansas, all of whom are aware of her situation, no one has thus far offered to lend a hand.
"I'm 48 years old. I'm an adult
I'm on my own." Catherine saves.
"My daughter offered to help with $100," Catherine says. Her daughter, a teenager who lives with Catherine's ex-husband, was working the concession stand at a public swimming pool at the time.
"She said she'd give me her paycheck to help pay the rent. I told her no. I appreciated it, and of course I cried, but I told her to keep it."
When she enrolled at the University in the middle of her personal housing crisis.
But between the recently approved four-year tuition compact, an Orange Bowl victory and a men's basketball national title, the University got a record-breaking fall enrollment this year at 30,102 students, including 4,438 first-time freshmen.
Nontraditional students such as Catherine didn't stand a chance at getting a spot in the residence halls.
Although she initially enrolled in 12 credit hours, Catherine has since dropped to six to accommodate her work schedule. A bachelor's degree is part of her long-term plan to get a better job, but the short-term goal is to get out of the shelter by the end of the year.
"My daughter offered to help with $100. She said she'd give me her paycheck to help pay the rent ... I appreciated it, and of course I cried, but I told her to keep it."
"It's hard, once you get here, to dig yourself out of it," Catherine says. "But it can be done, and I plan on doing it."
Situations like Catherine's have become increasingly common over the last decade, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, and are likely to get worse — soon, says Michael Stoops, acting Executive Director.
Catherine tried to qualify for student housing.
CATHERINE Homeless Lawrence resident
"How do I say this?
There's a tidal wave coming," Stoops says.
"Over 900,000 Americans have had their homes foreclosed upon. The unemployment rate is the highest it's been in the last 20 years. Whenever the
economy is weak, it causes more people to become homeless."
--rain on downtown, Mark spreads a pinch of tobacco along the length of a rolling paper, his fingers yellow with nicotine.
For Mark and Leila, life in Lawrence is a waiting game.
Bracing against the chilly wind, glancing up at the black clouds about to attack a near-freezing
"Some people choose this lifestyle," Mark says, careful to shepherd any loose tobacco back into a Bugler pouch in his lap. "Other people are just out here on a temporary basis. I'm out here on a disability claim, and I'm gonna buy
me a trailer. I'm not going to make this the rest of my life."
Once a well-known carpenter in Douglas County, Mark, 51, injured his back in 2001. After surgery, Mark couldn't work and found himself on the streets within a year.
On Feb. 9, Mark and Leila were married at the homeless shelter.
"We just clicked," Leila says.
"We kind of read each other's thoughts, know what each other is thinking all the time, pretty much. Seemed like the perfect fit."
"I wasn't lookin' for nobody when I found her," Mark says. "I"
Leila, 38, was once employed as a certified nurse's assistant but left her job to care for a boyfriend injured in a construction accident. When the relationship turned abusive, Leila says, she left him and her only residence, joining the estimated 10,000 adults who find themselves homeless because of domestic violence each month, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Leila met Mark her second day on the street.
been divorced for, I don't know,
ten years. She's my fourth wife"
"He loves bringing that up." Leila says.
Five years after filing a Social Security disability claim, Mark is still waiting. His claim is currently on its second appeal.
LEILA Homeless Lawrence resident
For Mark and Leila, who often choose to camp near the river rather than endure the crowding and noise of the shelters and anxiety exacerbated by post-traumatic stress disorders, the approaching winter is a reminder of what they're missing.
"It's really hard to work as a nurse's assistant when you can't shower every day, and you've got dirty fingernails' cause you live at a campsite."
"We're sat- isfied with our camp — we're
"I could have a job right now if I had a place to live," she continues. "But I don't. It's really hard to work as a nurse's assistant when you can't shower every day, and you've got dirt fingernails 'cause you live at a campsite — they don't like to hire people who are dirty like that. They kind of frown on it."
happy there," Leila says. "But we'd much rather have a house, you know. A place with heat and a refrigerator and a way to cook food where you don't have to worry about the rain putting your fire out."
Mark, who says he has experienced his share of winter outdoors in Lawrence, looks to the future with a stoicism utterly lacking in self-pity.
Men and women from the Lawrence area gather in the basement of the First United Methodist Church on a Tuesday morning in early November. The church is home to the Jubilee Cafe, a twice-a-week program that serves free breakfast. The cafe is one of a thorough network of feeding programs throughout the downtown area, which many of the city's homeless depend upon for their survival.
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
'You just... deal with it, you
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
A resident of the Lawrence Community Shelter takes his evening medication while the shelter's night manager keeps watch over the medications of others. Lack of adequate medical care is listed as one of the more major contributing to factors to homelessness in the United States.
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