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PATH PartnersJoel John Roberts
Joel John Roberts is the CEO of PATH Partners (People Assisting The Homeless), the LA Homelessness Examiner writer for Examiner.com, publisher of Poverty Insights, frequent writer of opinion pieces on homelessness and housing, and the author of the book, "How To Increase Homelessness."
Posts by Joel John Roberts
Does America Have Enough to pay the Rent?
All my life I’ve paid my bills. Mortgage, credit card, car payment, electricity bill. I used to think it was because I was responsible, because I was taught at a young age to pay my debts.
Given the current difficult economy, I wonder if it is really because I was just plain lucky. Lucky to have a solid education, gainful employment, sufficient savings. Enough to pay rent and buy food at the grocery store.
Should the Town Drunk get Free Housing?
When Otis got drunk he would check himself in and out of the local Mayberry jail, a one-room cage next to Sheriff Andy Taylor’s office, to sleep off his inebriation. Otis Campbell was the fictional town drunk in the 1960s television show The Andy Griffith Show. Back then, the town drunk was more of an amusement, unless of course you were related to him.
Today, however, the town drunk conjures up images of inebriated homeless men roaming Skid Row who are so plastered from alcohol that they are sprawled across the sidewalk looking like death.
An Empire of People-less Homes with Homeless People
There was once a vast and prosperous empire that was the most powerful in the land. It was mightier than the ancient Mayans, more popular than the Romans, and wider reaching than the British empire of old.
This Northern Amerigo empire was the envy of the world. The elite of smaller empires sent their offspring to be educated in schools called Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. Armies of other nations feared this empire’s “shock and awe” approach to war.
Redesigning the way this Country Houses the Homeless
I sat in a cavernous auditorium during my youth along with hundreds of other eager collegians who were determined to become the next Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s most fabled architect. An older man carefully strolled across the empty stage to a standing ovation of his youthful aficionados. He wore a dark rumpled-looking suit, had very little hair, and wore glasses that looked like he was a rocket scientist during the old Soviet arms race.
This architect and futurist hero was Buckminster Fuller who famously called our planet, “Spaceship Earth”, and created the geodesic dome, a cheap way to build an American home. He was one of those innovative architects who always thought outside of the box, or in his case, thought outside of the dome.
Broken Social Safety Net is Making Americans Sick
I work within a few office spaces away from a waiting room filled to the brim with people that are so impoverished they have resorted to living on the streets. Those of us on the front lines battling homelessness in America know that the so-called American social safety net is tattered.
An incredulous gasp is my only response when a presidential candidate, worth a quarter of a billion dollars, publicly states on national television that this country has a “very ample safety net” for poor Americans.
Homeless Counts Should be Counting Backwards
In the darkness of early morning, the counting can be monotonous, an exercise that almost puts you to sleep. I have written before about the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandated homeless counts that occur throughout this country during the month of January. Municipalities have to count their homeless population at least every other year, or they will lose their HUD funding. Some cities count every year.
Counting how many people are languishing on our streets, however, is good. How can we address a sad human tragedy without knowing the extent of the problem? How can we know if we are successfully reducing the number of people on our streets without regularly assessing our work through counts?
Bashing the Homeless: When Pinkberry Becomes Punkberry
What is this country coming to when a guy in a car chases down a homeless man and pounds him with a tire iron, just because they exchanged angry words? Sounds like the old Wild West where guns were the primary mode of justice, or today’s drug cartels terrorizing its people just south of America.
You would think the guy in the car was some young, angry teenage male wanting to harm homeless Americans just for the thrill of it, a sad trend in this country.
Killing Homeless Stereotypes in Orange County
At first glance, he appears to be the stereotypical image of a killer of homeless Americans. He is young, male, angry, and has short hair, almost to the point of being a skinhead.
Since 1999, the National Coalition for the Homeless has documented nearly 1,200 violent crimes against homeless Americans with one in five ending up dead. Nearly 90% of the perpetrators were male, and 80% were under the age of 25 years old.
Could Skid Row Turn into Death Row?
There is a different sort of fear permeating the homeless streets of Southern California these days. Not the fear of temperatures dropping in the middle of the night, especially in this balmy winter weather. Nor worries of going hungry on these streets where a faith group feeds the homeless on practically every other corner or park.
If you are homeless in Orange County or its adjacent county in Los Angeles, there is a frightfully valid concern of being stabbed in the middle of the night.
