Headlines, North America

/ARTS WEEKLY/MEDIA: Homeless People Take to Airwaves Overnight

Marty Logan

MONTREAL, Feb 10 2004 (IPS) - ”I’m here to make it known that all people, especially street people and the homeless, have a right to the mass media, and do have a right to say whatever (is necessary) to get themselves into better conditions.”

”Street people are treated like scum of the Earth; they’re treated as not being human. People look after animals better than they look after street people. This isn’t right, and this is why we’re putting on this marathon – is to make an awareness.”

That was Anthony Edwards, a founder of one of Montreal’s first ”squats” – where homeless people took over an abandoned building – speaking during Canada’s first Homelessness Marathon, hosted by Montreal-based CKUT radio in the winter of 2003.

From sunset Feb. 12 to sunrise Feb. 13, 2004, the McGill University station will broadcast its second marathon from the city’s frozen streets to raise awareness about the growing problem of homelessness.

For one hour, the project will also link up with the Homelessness Marathon, started in 1998 by U.S. community radio host Jeremy Alderson, and now broadcast on about 80 radio stations in the United States and on the Internet.

”Every year more stations carry the programme. I personally am always impressed by how much goodwill there is out there towards homeless people in America, and by how many wonderful people are struggling to do good work on every level,” Alderson told IPS before leaving for Cleveland, in Ohio State, this year’s host city.


But he would not put the nation’s political leaders, or aspirants, in that category. ”The force of leadership in our country today is unquestionably towards creating more homelessness, not towards solving it,” said Alderson.

”The Bush budget that was just proposed will cut low-income housing funds. That’s not going to help,” he said, adding that Democratic Party contenders for the chance to face U.S. President George W. Bush in the November elections, ”all turned us down (when asked to participate) except for Dennis Kucinich … most of them just blew us off.”

Advocates for the homeless are reluctant to estimate how many people would fit in that category, but a study by the U.S.-based Urban Institute predicted that about 3.5 million people feel the weight of homelessness in the United States in a given year.

Another study reported by a University of Toronto professor counted the number of shelter beds in Canada’s largest city. In 1996, there were 4,000 beds offered per night; in 1997, 5,400, and it was predicted the number would climb to over 7,000 in 1998.

”The face of homelessness has changed drastically over the years,” according to Donald Whitehead, executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. ”We’re starting to see more working poor. We’re starting to see more people with other issues, and the main issue is the lack of affordable housing and poverty.”

At 39 percent, ”the largest growing sector of the homeless population in the United States is women and children,” he added in an interview Monday.

The reasons for that development include a growing level of domestic abuse and the fact that a higher proportion of women work in the services sector, which faces more layoffs during economic slowdowns, said Whitehead.

This week’s homelessness marathons will include panel discussions about the issue, open microphones where anyone express an opinion and toll-free numbers for callers from across Canada and the United States.

Last year, the Montreal-based marathon was picked up by 18 non-commercial stations across Canada.

”In light of recent events in the City of Vancouver . the message of just how important the issues of homelessness are in any city became much more clear and significant to all those that tuned in,” wrote Bryce Dunn, from CiTR Radio at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, in a letter posted on the CKUT website.

Alderson says he was astonished during the first marathon in 1998 when people brought him coffee during the night and in the morning dug into their pockets for money to pay his expenses, although he says the event was not conceived as a fundraiser.

Changing the system that perpetuates homelessness is more important than charity, he adds. ”Right now there’s this terrific disinformation campaign going on to convince people that homelessness is a result of personal failings.”

But ”when you see it as part of a pattern of taking money away from the poorest in our society … and you understand that people are homeless for the same reasons you can’t get scholarships any more for universities, and you can’t get medical care for your job; you can’t get a job that pays enough to live on if you earn minimum wage – when you see that this is all one thing, then it’s possible to really make a movement out of it,” Alderson says.

Whitehead believes that ending homelessness is an ”absolutely realistic” goal.

”I think one of the most unfortunate issues that we face as homeless advocates is the reality that homelessness is preventable, that we have the resources in this country to prevent and end homelessness. It’s just a matter of political will.”

”Homeless is America’s dirty little secret. As long as people believe that it’s people with substance abuse or mental health issues they’re less likely to be supportive. Once the real underlying issues are brought to light and brought to people’s attention I think that people (will) get involved,” said Whitehead.

 
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