The Idaho Progressive Student Alliance (IPSA) an student organization from Idaho State University, held their 3rd Annual To the Streets Homeless Awareness Event last night on the ISU Quad. They had about 50-80 people attend and just 1 hour into the event had raised over $300 for the Bannock County Aid for Friends Homeless services; wise investment in successful programs.
Where the issue of homelessness is a community issue, this event is intimately connected to the Democrats of Southeast Idaho.
The Idaho Progressive Student Alliance (IPSA) an student organization from ISU, held their 3rd Annual To the Streets Homeless Awareness Event Friday night (April 4th) on the ISU Quad. They had about 50-80 people attend and just 1 hour into the event had raised over $300 for the Southeast Idaho Aid for Friends Homeless services.
This event is intimately connected to Idaho Democrats.
First, and my favorite reason of the day is that the Idaho Progressive Student Alliance, a state-wide organization, is a group that was first nurtured by United Vision for Idaho. Announced yesterday is that Jim Hansen, the (as of today) executive director of United Vision for Idaho (UVI), shall be taking the position of Executive Director of the Idaho Democratic Party. IPSA and even To the Streets would not exist without the help of Jim Hansen who helped the IPSA do a Progressive Advocacy Training program in at Boise State University (BSU) in February 2006.in February 2006. At this event, which he attended and helped train students in progressive issues and campaigning, is where To the Streets had it’s conception.
While IPSA and UVI are non-partisan, the people within the groups sometimes have parties.Eight out of 9 of the students who put the event together are openly democrats, the one is closeted, but she did caucus for Obama this February. Don't worry, the group does have Republican members too. The search for speakers was not partisan biased, but it seems that democrats were the most willing to speak out to help end poverty in this community.
Their first speaker was Melissa Norton, a philosophy lecturer at ISU, the ISU College Democrats’ advisor, and a woman who is committed to do what she can to see poverty end in her lifetime. She pointed out that homelessness is loneliness. While most people who have a financial or housing crisis can turn to friends and families, families who end up homeless usually don’t have this connection. If they do have the community connection, their connections are not financially capable of helping them. The families and people who become homeless are estranged from the connections we may take for granted. These families who lose their homes after losing their jobs are living pay check to pay check and sub living wages. This is something the Democrats care about.
Melissa shared with us 10 things we can do to end homelessness.
- Learn about homelessness and educate others.
- Support the development of affordable housing.
- Contact your local elected officials and ask them what they are doing to support homeless children and families. Ask for their support of local initiatives and programs. Ask them to establish a Plan to End Homelessness in your community.
- Volunteer at a local shelter - no matter what you do for a living, you can help the homeless with your on-the-job talents and skills.
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
- Donate groceries, toys and money to local homeless shelters.
- Donate leftover food and flowers from catered events.
- Become a landlord to a family that is transitioning out of a homeless shelter.
- Help a family move or provide "house warming gifts" such as linens, dishes, pots and pans, small appliances and lamps for children, youth and families who are moving out of the shelter and into their own homes.
- Ask local television stations to schedule educational programs on homelessness. Your encouragement and praise of such programs can keep them on the air.
The second speaker of the night was Bannock County Commissioner Lin Whitworth (and 2004 Democratic candidate in ID CD-2, Jim Hansen's predecessor). Lin shared that he has been homeless before. He traveled from place to place finding work in agriculture. He was born at the end of the Great Depression, and he knew what poverty was. He understands that the answer to homelessness and poverty is a hand-up, not a hand-out. Lin pointed out that keeping a family in Idaho demands a living wage of $15 per hour 40 hour week. Our county or city can’t just bring jobs to Pocatello, they have to bring good jobs to Pocatello. He shared his outrage of how he had seen the "Right to Work" be a right to poverty and how it isn’t working here in Idaho. He impressed me by sharing my favorite Eisenhower quote with the crowd
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
He also mentioned my favorite democratic presidential candidate, Dennis Kuchinch when he reminded us that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. He quoted Dennis when he said
" * Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction.
* Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
* Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction.
* Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction.
* Poor education is a weapon of mass destruction."
Lin especially impressed me when he make it publicly known that he knows he "doesn’t just work for the people who own the hospitals, but also works for the people who they won’t allow in the hospital".
Lin shared that he knows that services like Aide for Friends is a place where people can come and start over. At Aide for Friends there are services to help in a variety of ways. It is an example of how Democrats believe social programs should work. They aren’t a hand out, but a hand-up. The program isn’t just a hostel, it is a program to get people the help they need to help them selves.
Third, Larry Gahn, another Democrat and a Bannock County Commissioner also attended the event. He has been working hard for Bannock County for years and his attendance was welcomed. Especially because it was un-solicited. He too cares about a living wage and understands the importance of community support in ending homelessness.
B.J. Stensland, the executive director of Aid for Friends, described the services of Aid for Friends in her address to the audience. She said Aid for Friends helps navigate people to the sources they need to help themselves. Aid for Friends has a variety of services to help people start over. For those physically and mentally unable to control their finances, there is a payee program that helps them have financial stability. For people who need transitory housing, while they save up to get their own home, there are services for that. And then there is the Emergency Shelter.
This program isn’t just a community cost, it is a community investment. One bed night at the shelter costs $15, a night in the Bannock County Jail costs $53. And on top of that, Aid for Friends in connection with other Southeast Idaho community programs has a homelessness prevention program. Our investment in Aid for Friends prevents the increased costs later. This is the Democratic idea of how social services should work.
Like Stensland said, "This community has a giving heart", and at the heart of the Bannock County community, there are Democrats.