Morning Reading: Is It A Crime to be Poor?

Here's a good op-ed by Barbara Ehrenreich on the criminalization of poverty.

Study Finds Majority of Americans With Depression Go Untreated

Check it out:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1913312,00.html

Links

Objects In Cyberspace:

Attention aspiring film makers: Nike and The Homeless World Cup are offering a $50,000 fund to produce a short film (5 minutes, no more than 10 minutes) capturing the Spirit, Unity, Victory of the Milan 2009 Homeless World Cup, which will be held 6-13 September 2009. For more information on the Homeless World Cup, check out this link.

The Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts hosted a very successful brain injury awareness walk/run. The 2nd annual Walk for Wishes Begun attracted hundreds of participants and helped raise awareness for an all-too-common issue. Along the same lines, ShelterCare will soon be hosting its 1st annual Summit Challenge run/walk. If you haven't already done so, please check out www.sheltercareevents.com.

Here is what Dear Abby has to say about a woman who is haunted by her initial reaction to the discovery an old friend is now homeless.

A Seattle suburb was found by the state Supreme Court to have violated the state constitution by using a temporary ban on development to block a church's effort to set up a tent city for the homeless.

CD

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

-A new study indicates that an intervention that provides housing for people who are homeless with alcohol dependency without requiring abstinence from alcohol was associated with reduced health care costs and a decrease in the use of alcohol. 

-Today, Navy Admiral, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff addressed a lunchtime audience on the topic of some of the problems faced by many combat veterans returning home, among them homelessness. He stressed that these problems will not go away anytime soon, and that things need to be done to help veterans readjust to civilian life. 

-Homeless tent cities keep springing up in communities around the country. 

-Close to home: On any given night in Washington state, 9,000 children do not have a safe place to stay. 

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

-A makeshift tent city populated by Sacramento's homeless will be shut down within a month. In order to accommodate the 125 residents of the tent city , California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger has ordered that the state facility known as the Cal-Expo at the state fairgrounds be used to serve them for three months. For more information on the Hoovervilles of our era, check out this article in the New York Times.

-Right or Wrong?-cnn.com has a story about the controversial site pimpthisbum.com. The site, the brainchild of father/son duo Kevin and Sean Dolan has raised $50,000 in donations and pledges for a homeless man from Houston named Timothy Edwards. Edwards, upon the Dolan's request, simply added the url to the cardboard sign he normally used while panhandling to attract visitors to the site. Many responded by flocking to the site. Many advocates for the homeless are questioning the usage of such a controversial url address, but the Dolans defend their choice on the grounds that a nicer, more sincere sounding alternative (say, helpthehomeless.com) would never have attracted so many visitors. 

The tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson last week has raised awareness about traumatic brain injury. This website has information about how to identify symptoms in young children. 

The Huffington Post has a piece by Maria Foscarinis called "Invest to End Homelessness."

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

-The tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson after what was described by many as a minor fall on a beginners' ski slope this week shows us that we need to be vigilant when it comes to a head injury. Even those that seem like nothing initially. 

-Michael V. Kaplan over on the Brain Injury Blog has a must-read post on the myths of traumatic brain injury.

-Here's a short story about one veteran's experience with a service-related brain injury.

-Dottie Ardell, the mother of a son with a brain injury will hold her 4th annual Brain Injury Awareness Day this Saturday in Butler, PA.

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

In the spirit of Brain Injury Awareness Month, here are some brain injury-related links to peruse.

-As many as 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries. Of these, 45,000-90,000 veterans' injuries have persistent symptoms that warrant specialized care. 

-Here's some good employment news in an otherwise dim job market: 22 new employees will be hired in Carthage, NY.  The new employees will staff a 24 hour facility for rehabilitation services for people with brain injuries. 

-Brian Scalabrine of the Boston Celtics is out indefinitely due to a second concussion experienced in a recent game. A concussion is a mild brain injury. Although most heal on their own, experiencing a subsequent concussion while the first is still healing can result in more permanent damage. 

Here is an inspiring story about the recovery progress of Rudy Sotomayor (a star amongst makeup artists) from a brain injury he sustained in a 2007 after a car hit him in a crosswalk. 

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

Image: freedigitalphotos.net

Alright, so we didn't manage to do a link entry last week (things got a little hectic around here), so we have a couple more links than usual this week.

The news in Lane County regarding the skyrocketing homeless count is not good, as was previously mentioned on this blog (here's the link to the Register Guard article again, in case you missed it). We are not alone in the challenges we are facing however, as this is a problem in many locales.

-The down economy and recent major closings have left many residents of the state of Idaho homeless and many shelters in the state are nervous about how they will cope with the increase of people in need.

-The state of Minnesota is generally a place that doesn't see many homeless in the bitter cold winter month, but that is not the case this year, as the numbers are on the rise.

-In better news, a much needed day center with counseling services for the homeless is set to open in Fort Collins, Colorado. 

-The Economic Stimulus and the Homeless: the recently passed stimulus includes an allocation of $1.5 billion dollars for services for the homeless and homelessness prevention. Shannon Moriarty has an interesting take on the good and bad aspects of all of the various breakdowns of the money over at change.org. 

-Foot and ankle doctors attending a conference in Washington D.C. will be donating thousands of pairs of socks to the area's homeless population. 

-Right Guard recently teamed up with the Salvation Army to hold a fantasy basketball camp for kids living in shelters in Phoenix. How cool is that? 

-Oprah recently profiled homeless folks in her "Faces of the Recession Series". Here is a link to a reporter's experience in a tent city in Sacramento. 

There, that is a lot of links folks. Happy reading!

Thursday's Ready-For-The-Weekend Link List

Image: freedigitalphotos.net)

Here are some interesting links from elsewhere in cyberspace that may be of interest:

-St. Martin's Hospitality Center, in Albuquerque, NM is conducting a "Street Retreat", during which volunteers will experience what it's like to be homeless for a few days in late January. It's one of several such events that have cropped up in cities across the nation in recent years. 

-Here's an interesting article explaining how blast pressure (generated when weapons are fired) may cause brain injury.

-The December unemployment numbers for the state of Oregon are in, and the news is not so good.

-The economic downturn and punitive welfare policies are exacerbating the issue of homelessness for our friends Down Under. 

-NYC begins to make progress on the dual diagnosis front.