Technical Difficulties

This time, I have been away from the blog for almost two months. The reason for that is: technical difficulties. First of all, I had problems with my Internet connection -- and still do. That compelled me to use my work computer only, which gave me almost no time for personal blogging. Then, as if to make sure that I did not compose anything for publication, in an overhaul of the computers at work, my hard drive was replaced, thereby taking from me all the files that I had created, even those that I used in my work, as well as the software that I had been accustomed to using. Now I am having to reconstruct everything from scratch, which takes a considerable amount of time.

It may take me a while before I'm up and running again, but it is my intention to continue here.

Where Do We Go from Here?

For many of us, the outcome of the 2010 election was an anti-climax. Everybody knew that the economy was suffering, that unemployment remains high, that the huge deficit yawns before us – in short, all the gloom and doom that has beset the United States for years now. The polls predicted that Democrats would lose many seats in the election; the media sang that song as if it were at the top of the charts. So nobody was really surprised to see the results. Maybe some gamblers lost some money trying to predict precise numbers, but the basic message was clear: the people were growing impatient with the economic miseries and wanted change.

The problem with wanting “change” is that the word does not really specify what change will happen. We all remember that President Obama campaigned around the message that he would work to bring change to Washington; whether or not he delivered on that promise is the subject for another discussion. Now the voting public had spoken in the only manner possible for them, and they expressed that they were not happy with the direction the country was pursuing. The only real choice they had was to make changes in the Congress personnel through an election.

The limitation of this voting option is that the choices of candidates are pretty much limited to candidates from the two major parties, Democratic and Republican. If the polls are an accurate indication of the mood of the public, the voters were not really happy with either party’s platform and had little confidence in the parties’ ability to make the changes that they wanted. But what does a voter do when neither side inspires confidence? The option of not voting at all is not very responsible. Independent candidates, as well as candidates from the smaller parties, do exist, but without the backing of a major party, the chances of being elected are much slimmer as a rule. So in worst-case scenarios, a flip of a coin may make the decision. Was this the case in the election? It seems doubtful, but the information gathered indicated that discontent was high and trust in elected officials was low.

Now comes the question: what sort of changes can we expect? The Republican Party has already pledged to repeal the health care law; one Republican stated outright that their goal is to prevent Obama from being re-elected in 2012. That does not change the fact that Obama is the President now and still has the power of veto if the Republicans try to undo the things that the Obama Administration has succeeded in creating in the past two years. Knowing that he has less than a favorable Congress to deal with, Obama may be exercising that veto power much more often than he has to date. If he does, the result will be stagnation.

Will that be the fate of the United States? To remain in limbo because a party is hell bent on ousting the President and undoing everything he has done? Stagnation in government is something the people of the United States can ill afford. So, in essence, what have we done? Nothing positive, it would seem. The United States needs a functional government to come out of its current quandary, and from the looks of things, that’s something the United States does not have now.

It is folly to expect the parties to modify their platforms. Compromise and cooperation are words that seem to have little meaning, if indeed the elected officials even know the meaning of the words – something that is indeed questionable. Bipartisanship seems like a pipe dream at best.

So where will all this end? Sorry, there’s no crystal ball here to help us see what the future may hold. What is clear, however, is that the public is in need of some positive signs that matters of the economy and employment will improve. But will the parties work together on these matters or continue to do battle with one another at the expense of the public? The answer is something that the public deserves to know.

Back After a Long Break

When I last posted to the blog in 2007, I felt that there was little point in continuing as my readership was abysmally low. Gaps in one's life usually require explaining, but I do not pretend to justify the absence other than to say that it was a low point for me. It is now October 1, 2010, and I am resuming after an absence both online and in print. Even if my readership stays low, I'll be posting from time to time.

My struggles have not ended. On October 4, I will be facing my ex in a dispute over the amount of child support I can pay. My income is limited to Social Security Disability Income, and even that is garnished at 60 percent, so I don't see how I can be expected to pay more, but I have little faith in the ability of courts to dispense justice as I have seen too often how it has not happened. Even King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes about wickedness in the place of justice, so it's not a new concept.

So here goes, another try at blogging. It may not be for mass consumption, but I won't let that worry me this time around. I'll be doing it for myself.

For the Homeless, a Playful Reprieve

When a co-worker at Arts and Education first approached me with the idea of participating in a street soccer team, I could only laugh. I felt I had as much chance of winning the lottery as I had in playing on a soccer team of any sort. However, my co-worker was persistent, and in the end, I decided to give it a try. Not having played soccer for 39 years – since my sophomore year of high school, to be precise – I had no illusions about my level of ability, and I was more than aware that it was going to be an embarrassing experience, to say the least. It was with this mindset that I went to my first practice.

To describe the way things progressed for me, I would have to tell the story of how my high school band director instructed us when we first started marching band. He said to us, “To do the high-knee step, you must lift your legs high to be parallel with the ground before setting your feet down onto the ground with each step. At first you will feel and look ridiculous. After a while, the feeling will pass. Then you will only look ridiculous.” That statement pretty much sums up my experience as I started out playing with the team. Still, I did not let that stop me. Seeing that I was playing the position of goal keeper, I wasn’t expecting to look particularly elegant, especially when a ball smacked me in the face at 90 miles an hour, as it did in one of the games; that one I’m not likely to forget any time soon.

On July 19, the team traveled with the coaches and some other involved persons to Charlotte, North Carolina for a conference where we played against other teams comprised of homeless individuals. On July 20, there was a series of lectures designed to help various communities who want to begin street soccer teams of their own, as well as for representatives from cities that want to start street newspapers of their own.

The camaraderie that existed among the players during the conference was a world apart from the dog-eat-dog world of the street that is the reality of homelessness in an everyday life situation. There was something about the way that playing together generated a chemistry that offset the predatory nature of homelessness for the participants. I am usually very cynical about such things, but I couldn’t ignore what I saw.

The theme that was often repeated during the four days that I was in Charlotte was that street soccer is a great tool for giving a face to homelessness different from the traditional stereotype and helps the participants to rebuild their lives. In the film that we saw on July 20, persons from countries around the world testified as to what a difference participation in street soccer had made in their lives. Guest speakers appeared to speak of the positive impact that the program has on the community. And, of course, there is also the game itself and the skills that the players acquire while playing, which poses an ongoing challenge as the players strive to achieve higher levels of prowess in soccer.

I would be amiss if I did not mention the coaches and other involved persons that accompanied us on the trip who formed a team of their own in the mini-tournament. Billed as the Advocates, they gave a very impressive performance, especially Street Sense’s own Laura Osuri, who earned for herself the nickname “the Wall” from the commentator at the games for her outstanding execution as the team’s goal keeper. She faced a task far more daunting than the one I faced playing the same position, and she carried it off with finesse. One of the coaches, Philip Ruzycki, took a large number of photographs to preserve the memories of our experiences at the conference, which he posted on the Internet for the rest of us to view.

It was an enjoyable change of pace and scenery for all of us. From the warm hospitality we received down to the final ceremony, the conference was an event that was well worth the effort. The DC team walked away with the Fair Play Award, which was a pleasant ending for a most pleasant reprieve from the world of homelessness.

A Solemn Occasion

In an earlier editorial, I wrote about having the option of family to go home to as a solution to homelessness. In that editorial, I mentioned that my own family indicated to me that coming home was “not an option” for me. The reason for that statement was not because of my father, who would have welcomed me had he been the one calling the shots. In early May, my father passed away. I boarded a bus and traveled all night, getting not a wink of sleep, in order to arrive to his funeral in North Carolina. When I went to his funeral, it could not have been made clearer to me that I had no home to return to than it was at that funeral.

When I arrived at the funeral site, my stepmother acknowledged me only for a fleeting moment. I was in a state of confusion anyway, as I met relatives and friends of the family that I had not seen in 20 to 30 years. I had to deal with the visual shock of how they had aged. It was at the memorial service that I saw how I had become little more than an unwanted stepchild. The clergyman speaking there did not know me, and he spoke only about what a successful second marriage my father had with my stepmother. He spent a long time praising their marriage and how much my father loved her, almost ignoring the fact that my father had been married to my mother for a longer period and that they had raised a family together. The only mention he made of me was how my father had “loved his boys with unconditional love,” for whatever that was worth. It was as if my mother, my brother and I were a mere afterthought in this ceremony.

I knew that I was persona non grata in my stepmother’s house, so there was no place for me to go for the mourning after the ceremony. Fortunately, the cousin who had stayed in touch with me and who had informed me of my father’s death had come with her daughter, and they took me around at a time when I definitely did not need to be left alone. It would not have been good for me to go back to a hotel room to sit by myself. My cousin paid for the hotel room, I must add, which was a very nice gesture on her part. Even though I no longer had a home to call my own any more, it was nice to know that I still had some family that cared.

As for my father, I know he is no longer suffering and has moved on to the next world. He suffered enough from the ravages of Alzheimer’s, and even though he was good humored about it, the disease ultimately took his life regardless. I devote this column to his memory, may it be blessed.

An Administrative Error

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it was probably too much to expect that I would finally find housing after all this time. I had seen apartments available in a property that appeared in the housing list published by the DC Department of Mental Health in an area that was very desirable. I wasted no time in contacting my case manager to make an appointment to see the apartments. Soon we made the visit to the property and saw the apartments. They definitely met with my approval. The next step was to go to the office of the property management to fill out the application form and to pay the application fee. My case manager and I made an appointment to go and do just that, and we made the trip out to Rockville for that purpose. So we made the trip, I filled out the form, paid the fee and – then something just had to go wrong, and it did.

The next step was that my case manager had to fax to the property management the confirmation of my DMH housing subsidy, which was a mandatory element in my securing the housing. It was at this point that it was discovered that the paperwork for my subsidy was missing from my personal file, even though I had filed new paperwork at the beginning of 2007 as the Department of Mental Health requires of all subsidy holders. Then there was the mystery: where did the paperwork go? Because of the missing paperwork, I lost the opportunity to obtain the housing for which I had made the efforts and paid the application fee. I don’t even begin to talk about the disappointment that I felt, which goes without saying.

Someone asked me the question, “Did you make copies of the paperwork that you filed?” The answer to that question would obviously be no, simply because I don’t have a copy machine at my disposal, which is the case for most people. Even if I had made copies, that would not have processed the paperwork for the subsidy, which is what was required, and I still have no idea if the paperwork had been processed or not. Because of an administrative error, I remain without housing; that is the long and short of the story.

It won’t help now to find someone to blame; the damage has already been done. I’ve lost my chance at that housing opportunity. Opportunities like that are very rare; I have seen precious few like it in the four years that I have been looking. I hardly need any words to attempt to explain the situation or to console me, as futile as they would be; I need suitable housing, as I have needed from the outset. If a bureaucratic snag has prevented me from getting it, I can’t be the one who has to manage all the facets of all the paper trail that has to take place in obtaining housing when there are other people who are paid salaries to do just that. Somewhere the channels have gotten clogged – am I supposed to be the one to troubleshoot and resolve the problem here? I should be receiving a salary if so!

If I weren’t already taking anti-depressants, I would need them now. Years of stagnation are continuing only because somewhere someone misplaced some papers that related to my case. I have every reason to feel more than a bit down about that.

A Meeting with a Friend

Not long ago, I met with a friend whom I had known from years ago, long before I became homeless. The meeting became a measuring stick that told me just how much things have changed in my life in the interim. The two of us have quite a lot in common. We are middle aged men who both lived in Israel for an extended period of time. We both are fathers of five children. We both have worked as technical writers for a number of years. Both of us are out of work at present, and both of us are writing novels that we are trying to have published, so there was no problem in finding topics of conversation in the meeting.

Because we had not seen each other in years, I had forwarded to him the photograph that appears with my column so that he could identify me when we met. As he readily told me, I look exactly as I do in the photograph. Yet he also said to me, “You don’t look happy.” Some things I could not hide, namely the melancholy that goes with being homeless and wondering if my situation will ever improve. It was very hard for me to sound upbeat in the conversation when there is so little for me to sound upbeat about in my life. It was very much like trying to make an ugly bride pretty for the photographs: a very difficult and frustrating task indeed.

Thanks to the Wildtech project currently under way at CCNV in which I am very much involved as a writer of curriculum and instructor, I could honestly say that I am working on a project that is keeping me quite busy and that I have opportunity to keep my skills as a technical writer sharp as I put together documentation for the persons learning in the Microsoft Word course that I teach. I also had opportunity to express my frustrations regarding working with Word 2007 and its Web-dependent features. I realized that I had not totally lost touch with the outside world, largely thanks to Wildtech and the work that I do at Arts and Education, for which I felt very grateful.

We then got onto the topic of writing novels, and here I actually found myself taking the lead, as I have approached more publishers and agents than my friend has. He asked me how does a person make a submission to an agent or publisher, and I was able to share with him my experience, which has taught me that while each company has its own way of doing things, in general, most companies will want to see no more than a first chapter in an initial correspondence. He asked me how to submit the chapter, and I told him that most places ask to copy and paste it into the e-mail content instead of attaching it because companies wish to avoid possible viruses that could come in through attachments.

Then the subject drifted to more personal matters, and that was when my friend discovered the reason that I do not look happy. It’s not easy to be happy when the future looks questionable and the present is so unpleasant. I had also received disturbing news from my son not long ago regarding his own living situation, and that was weighing on me as well; the thought that he could become homeless as well was worse than depressing to me.

When we parted company, my friend said, “If I don’t find a job, we’ll be meeting again soon.” I left with an odd feeling. On the one hand, I had held my own in the meeting, but on the other hand, I realized that he and I were in totally different worlds now. That disturbed me more than anything. I once belonged to the middle class quite comfortably; I am now alienated from it by almost four years of being homeless. That’s sufficient reason to be sad.