the reality tunnel

Procrastinating as usual, I went to change my voter registration address today, the last possible day to do it.  I asked what would have happened if I hadn’t changed my address and the answer was that, at least in Monroe County, you are allowed to vote once at your previous polling location.  The challenge is that, with redistricting, your previous district’s polling location may now be the polling location for a new district.  So, in that case, one would most likely have to wait in line, only to be sent to a new location.  In any case, I was told that having different addresses wouldn’t keep you from voting, but could delay voting.  Info about this was mailed out to registered voters, but in a community like Bloomington where, for students, and many of my peers, housing situations change a lot, it’s easy to not get the info.  So, for those who moved, but didn’t change their voter registration address, I would just call the local election office and find out where the polling place is for the address under which you’re registered.  If you go there, you should be able to vote.

I went to a forum today about FSSA’s recent privitization of the administration of Indiana’s food stamp, medicade, and other benefits. Here are my notes from the forum. I tried to be as accurate as I could, but in many cases, couldn’t keep up with names, positions, or people’s entire stories/statements.

Before I offer my notes, I wanted to give a little of my own analysis. The panel of experts represented various township and state government officials who were presented as experts. While one panelist aknowledged that they were only experts because they had heard so many criticisms and seen so many problems faced by their constituents, I still thought that the lack of people directly affected by the FSSA privitization on the panel was very telling of a system that continues to fail to put people using the services at the center of the disucssion and in control of driving the program’s future. There were a few people who had personally struggled trying to maintain FSSA benefits through the privitization rollout, but many of the voices were from people who worked through agencies or informally as advocates or who were friends, like myself, of people who had to deal with FSSA privatization. The sheer number of people affiliated with agencies or other nonprofits was encouraging because there seemed to be such a consensus that the current system was very flawed.

On the other hand, I think the non-profit to individual ratio represents how voices get masked behind the web of non-profits in Bloomington. Ideally, I would love to see people, not just represented by the non-profits that serve them, but representing themselves, with support (childcare, transportation, media access, employment) from the social services to allow people who are affected by issues of healthcare access or food security to direct their own voices to decision makers. The reason for this seems complicated. Bloomington non-profits definitely lack the resources to be both service providers and support for communities organizing themselves. Still, I think many non-profits are trapped in the mindset of helping the less fortunate or “humanizing the system”, as one commenter stated, rather than being part of more radical and fundamental change by helping those most affected be at the forfront of the dialog and the decision making or critically reshaping the social values and assumptions that underly inequality in Monroe and the policies that preserve it.

The role of non-profits remains a difficult one. As many people at the forum explained, the privitization of FSSA services also involved the removal of local FSSA caseworkers from communities across Indiana. This created a situation where the FSSA representatives that most people dealt with (mostly over the phone) were both unfamiliar with their cases and could not effectively help with problems. Charlotte Zietlow, who works with the Middleway House, made the additional analysis that removing local caseworkers has placed the burden of casework on other local agencies that are already struggling to find the resources to do the work that they’re doing. Exaserbating resource scarcity for supporting people in Bloomington creates a fearful and competitive atmosphere, where non-profits don’t communicate or collaborate and where they choose to hold the course of their work rather than pushing the boundaries of what could be or expanding their work to challenge root causes instead of helping people survive.

Here are the notes:

Panel

• Vi Simpson
• Peggy Welch
• Matt Pierce
• Dan Combs
• Linda Sievers?
• Zach Main - FSSA - “The guy in charge of the project”

Comments from agencies

Luanne Morrow (Fiscal Coordinator w/ Stonebelt)

• Deals with developmental disabilities who live in group homes and who are medicade funded.
• Notices from FSSA come from P.O. Box, look like junk mail and are often thrown away.
• Only one phone number for the whole state
• Used to deal with local agencies
• Recently the FSSA line has also been used for natural disaster issues, which has hurt access
• Why can’t regional and local offices have seperate phone #’s
• Monroe co. Medicade office moved and was hard to locate.
• Need e-mail address contacts
• 800# menu is really confusing
• Records are accessed by case # (not medicade #). It’s hard to find this case # because it’s only on the mailings.
• 10+ minute wait on 800 #.
• Can only talk about 3 “consumers” at a time.
• Her caseload is 66+ “consumers”
• Have different points of contact so the same situation has to be explained over and over again.
• FSSA reps wouldn’t talk to her as “consumer” representative because paperwork wasn’t filed
• No phone number for offices.
• Would only allow phone interview
• Only called office phone, when she wasn’t there.
• Thrown into reactive mode for advocating for her consumers
  • Forced to neglect other duties

Q (Peggy Welch): What has gotten better? What should we preserve in the system?
A (Luanne Morrow): Hasn’t seen anything that works better yet. “Everything has caused more work.”

Q (Vi Simpson): Why do you have to contact the office so frequently?
A : Each consumer has to have annual review with Medicade. Consumers have expenses with Stonebelt that they owe. This is funded through FSSA. Also, income, child support, etc. changes frequently.

Q (Dan Combs): Is there a specific group or contact for developmentally disabled individuals?
A: There used to be at the local office. There is allegedly a contact at the 800# who is a specific contact for group homes, but she hasn’t contacted them.

Q: Are there some people who navigate this w/o professional advocates?
A: Yes.

Comment (Linda Sievers): Works for an agency that has gotten access to the system to be able to pull up the FSSA records and pull up individual info by case #. This has been able to help some people.

Comment (Zach Main): Not here to argue or defend the system. “We’re working very hard.” Listening to feedback.

Chris Holly - Private advocate for medicade

• Lots of people shouldn’t need me (if the system worked)
• Personally likes to use the internet and feels tech savy, but the web forms on the FSSA site doesn’t work well.
• FSSA doesn’t honor paper applications from the old days, even when the computer system doesn’t work.
  • This is important because things are time sensitive.
• Biggest problem is that we can’t call someone at FSSA to finish a case.
• Appointed rep doesn’t get notices.
• For him, phone interviews are okay but
  • Reps aren’t familiar with the part of program he’s dealing with. He gets bumped to a specialist but can’t contact them directly.
• Reps haven’t looked at documentation
• Only get one chance for a call in a 2 hour window and one callback in 10 minutes.

Q: Peggy Welch: Does “failure to cooporate” describe people’s rejections from FSSA? Call doesn’t come through, often call the next morning instead, don’t reach the person, and the client get’s “failure to cooperate”. What does failure to cooporate mean?
(Lots of people in crowd raised hands in response to the first question)

A (Zach Main): Defined failure to cooperate as when reps say that they’ve sent them multiple notices and people haven’t met their responsibilities.

Q: Peggy Welch: In the past people could call to respond to find out why they got a failure to cooperate (what signature was missing, etc.). Now they can’t. What we’re missing is caseworkers (or a person responsible for a person). This is what missing, not the online forms.

A: Chris: This is a problem. There isn’t one person who understands the case and one person who is responsible. Social security has undergone similar modernizations but still has case workers.

Jody from Community Health and Wellness center in Bedford (also does WIC program)

• One postive thing - likes being able to check WIC eligibility on the Internet
• 17/52 prenatal patients are ineligible
• One patient has applied 3 times.
  • Internet form didn’t let her enter info
• Another patient is Asian and there are head of household communication issues
  • Jody has tried to support this family
  • Has had wrong doctor and wrong managed care assigned to her
  • Has been billed for ultrasound personally when she was eligible
• Computer issue, website issues, enrollment center training issues, local agencies aren’t trained, provider issues, panel issues, accurate adding of people to
• Using federal grant money to cover charges for ineligible folks “Who’s going to pay for them anyway.”

Vi: Why are they ineligible?

Vi: What about being in the 3rd trimester?

Jody: Yes

Tara Doyan: Crisis Pregnancy Center

• Previously an enrollment site. Weren’t given info on how to do this in transition.
• Needs caseworkers with knowledge of TANIF, childcare, hoosier healthwise, etc. that is a broad knowledge instead of having to be bounced around
• Only given notification of interview call for 2 hour time frame a day before or 2 days before. This doesn’t work for working moms.

? from Southern Indiana Pediatrics

• services thousands of kids (like 9000) on medicade
• wants to provide same level of service to kids regardless of payer
• Things have improved
  • Can now work with Anthem, MDWise, MHS, (Maybe one other)
  • Reimbursement rates improved under privitization because rates can be negotiated based on quality of care, level of utilization,
  • They’ve worked hard to develop relationships
  • Anthem and MHS works well (communication and websites)
• Decrease in caseworkers has hurts patients
• Autoassignment hurts patients
  • Assigned to care in a different county
  • Switched from provider they’ve used for years.

  Walked away from plans who have been bad business partners. They’ve steered parents away from MDWise because they haven’t gotten paid correctly from MDWise.

Jason Karns - Caseworker for Baron Hill’s office

• Since conversion 2-3 issues a week (vs. 2-3 issues a month before)
• 812.336.3000 - Contact Baron Hill’s office if you’re having a problem

Steve Sharp - Indiana Legal Services

• 1.800.822.4774 - ILS contact # for help
• Read letter from coworker who is a lawyer and wasn’t able to make the forum
  • Since mid may saw a sig. increase in cases due to clients losing benefits
  • Due to “Failure to cooporate”
  • In most of the cases of “failure to cooperate” people sent requried documents by deadline
    • i.e. document blurred in fax transaction = ‘failure to cooperate’
      • rejection letter was returned to sender so she never got the notice
      • didn’t find out until she tried to buy food and didn’t have funds
      • reapplied for expedited food stamps in May but never got a response
      • took a week for the release form to allow advocate to represent him
      • Call center rep verified that person had sent the required documents but couldn’t fix the error
    • No prompt way to resolve even agency errors
    • Old system: caseworker could solve this
    • New system: explainers and fixers but people can’t do both.
    • In the old system caseworkers could contact people when there was a problem. In the new system, people don’t run into problems.

Response (Zach): If a case takes too long to resolve, it does count against the error rate for IBM. If IBM’s success rate drops below 95%, they could lose funding

? - Rep from Area 10/2-1-1

• Questions, need help, call 2-1-1
• Calls, faxes, computer data gets “lost”
• Better results when things are “wireless” (I assume she means face to face communication)
• Food stamps is a big problem
• Monroe county had a flood but even worse in Owen county
• “Hispanic” community in Owen county even more vulnerable (esp. homes condemmed)
• Dan Denny with HT has been able to get help for people by contacting FSSA directly
  • FSSA Ombudsman hasn’t been as helpful
• Ever since the transition 2-1-1 has seen more calls.

Liz Jones - Area 10/2-1-1

• Immediately on rollout got calls
• Confused about system
• Confused about lack of caseworker
• 2-10 calls a day related to FSSA services
• Mostly foodstamps
• Lost benefits
• Ultimately refered to local food pantries

Janet ? - Bloomington Housing Authority

• 1350 section 8 families served by BHA
• 17% (~945 familes) are disabled or elderly
• “volumes you can’t believe” of folks coming with stacks of paperwork asking BHA to send (fax) paperwork for them
• HT has been helpful
• Not getting info from FSSA in a timely manner because these benefits effect people’s standing with BHA
• Don’t always have case #, used to accessing by SSN#

Jacob ? - Legal aid coordinator w/ Shalom

• As soon as the rollout happened, Shalom inundated with calls for assistance
• IU law student has dedicated his summer to help folks with understanding the system and dealing with appeals
• 20 cases active in last week
• 3 “areas of concern”
  • Lack of local caseworkers
    • Frequent complaint from people the shalom center works with
    • Forms themselves are way too complex.
    • Folks need local caseworker to help understand forms
  • Homeless folks don’t have phone or internet, phone number to receive call back
    • This is the biggest concern
    • Rollout was handled by mass mailing
    • Transient population didn’t get the notice.
      • I.e. family lost housing so they didn’t get packet
      • lost benefits for them and their kids, still working to get benefits back.
  • In the past time between application and interview was ~ 2 days, now it’s 20 (even with expedited application)
    • Also, 7 day “limbo period” after app. submission
      • can’t confirm receipt or any errors

Charlotte Zeitlow - Case manager w/ Middleway House

• Burden for caseworking has effectively been transferred to local agencies at a time when their resources are even more limited.
• Women who get services from MWH need services but aren’t sophisticated electronically.
  • Don’t have time to get access to computers or needed training
  • Many women don’t have telephones
• Asking people with the fewest resources to do the most complicated things technologically.

John Cardwell - Indiana Home Care Task Force, Generations project (looks at privitization issues)

• Problems articulated at this forum have been articulated in Muncie/Anderson/Kokomo particularly affected because they are the last community affected by the rollout
• People affected by this should work with caseworkers or representatives to file a “formal complaint:to “Food and Nutrition Service of U.S. Department of Agriculture” (Tim English, I think he said). Chicago office. Send foodstamp complaints here.
• Center for Medicade and Medicare Services (CMMS) - has Chicago office. Will take formal complaints.* Above 2 orgs initiates fed investigation into Indiana problems.
• Biggest problem is lack of caseworkers
• As a test, gave highly educated people the 16 page app. They would have all received a failure to cooperate notice because they couldn’t interpret the application
• Thinks IBM/ACS contract needs a “thorough public audit”.
• Federal law
• How $’s are being used
• Staff in Marion call center aren’t trained
• Caseworkers who were transferred have left
• Wants formal legislative hearings on this.

Comments from individuals

Mike Biggs - interested in this issue

• Indiana didn’t knock people off rolls initially and was successful and keeping good track of who should/shouldn’t be on the rolls. This got worse with privatization.
• Replacing trained FSSA staff with IBM workers and volunteers. This change hasn’t helped people. One state number instead of local service. Offices inaccessible because they’re hard to find and harder to get to.
• Goal of this was to knock people off of the rolls

Mary - Medicade User

• Forum balance on agencies rather than users
• Spent 2 hours on phone this morning and was referred to 6 different numbers to get one medicade answer
• Can’t have a needed procedure until another (lower cost) procedure was done first
  • Trying to be a good steward of medicare money, response was “just do the procedure anyway”.
• Couldn’t get info about restricitons and her particular case
• Given the run-around on the phone
• Don’t know what department to direct her to on the phone
• Wants to find a caseworker.

Catherine - Restuarant Owner

• Crime in neighborhood has increased since FSSA changes
• Increase in mentally ill people visiting her restaurant
  • Feels these people are getting knocked off of FSSA rolls
• “I’ve never seen poverty like I’ve seen in Indiana”
• There’s a “war on the poor people in Indiana”.
• IN should find a model in other states that works and be adopted in IN.
• Case workers are very important to bring back.

? - Received foodstamps and medicade services for children

• Ivy tech student, had to miss classes to attend forum
• Didn’t receive call at the time that they said.
  • Threatened with loss of job

? - Works with immigrants

• Children (even undocumented) are able to have some benefits
• When calling, call center doesn’t speak spanish, asks for SSN which people can’t give (even though their undocumented kids are eligible)
• Technology difficult to navigate, even for those with computers
• Need computers and tech support at local offices
• Need people who can interpret different languages

Dianna Goodman - Ivy tech student

• Classmate couldn’t take full course load, so she lost eligibility

Bob - medicade user

• Dyslexic, found out today that he was denied for 2 years for his medicade

Panelist Comments

Linda (Panelist) - Township Trustee

• Township can help
  • Food pantry
  • Rent/mortgage assistance
    • Makes decision about this in 72 horus
  • Shelter

Vi Simpson (Panelist) - State rep

• Thanked FSSA for their flood relief, esp. one stop shop for Brown county
  • Flood relief proves that we can accomplish things when we work together
• system faced “sudden and emotional changes”
• system is broken
• Because so many lives and vulnerable people depend on these programs working well and efficiently, by working together we can improve things. This is really the reason for today’s meeting.
• Hope that by bringing caseworkers here today, they could solve specific problems, but also wants to identify systemic problems
• I learned today: 2 page document to apply for children’s health service -> 18 page document
  • Vi was on comittee that recommended a 2 page app.
• This summer there will be hearings on this issue
• Contract needs to be funded in the budget so this could come into play in the budget hearings
• FSSA has suspended rollout to further counties

Matt Pierce (Panel) - Rep

• The way we serve the neediest members of our soceity is the fundamental gauge of our government
• General assembly must provide oversight
  • Understand what’s happening in system
  • ensure that changes are made if needed
  • Hearings this summer, this is the beginning of the process.
•  Goal: to have as few people as possible slip through the cracks -> contact his office if you need help
• Biggest concern: people reduced to data points. We might have moved into a structural system that has caused this to happen.

Peggy Welch (Panel)

•  Panel of “experts” because they’ve heard from so many people about this
• There’s been an increase in calls. This represents some kind of systemic problem.
• Peggy serves on ways and means committee. Not sure if current contract represents the most efficient use of taxpayer money in terms of people getting services. These questions will be asked during the summer.
• This forum will be broadcast on CATS.

Dan Combs (panel) - township?

•  Most disturbing forum he’s ever been at
• Developmentally disabled left on their own w/o advocate.
• Sees this as a result of deinstitutionalization
• Vendors don’t neccessarily want to work in this area. They’re in it to make money.
• Has taken 20+ years to build relationships with vendors
  • Local mortuary was going to stop taking medicade burials because they couldn’t get paid
• Township couldn’t get ahold of FSSA via phone number after rollout
• Media coverage changed this and the township was able to get a direct contact
• Direct contact is key, this doesn’t exist for client
• Social services will never be cheap or cost effective
• Good people in Indiana, not out to do a bad job, but we need to look and see if the job we’re supposed to be doing is what we’re doing.
• Low income people couldn’t have made a later meeting either because of non 9-5 hours of many workers* “Maybe it’s even bigger than what I thought it was”.

Zach Main (panel) - FSSA

• Changes in the last 3 years had the goal of making life better for neediest Hoosiers
• “It’s not a perfect system”
• Local office channel of communication is still available (his answer for call to casework)
• Changes
  • FSSA will increase staffing of local offices
  • FSSA local office will be able to handle cases from beginning to end
  • FSSA will remind people of local office option
• Goal wasn’t to force people to use phone/Internet
• FSSA working on forming closer partnerships with advocate organizations
• “Today is not the end, it is the beginning”

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Free
A New Jail?!: Exploring Alternatives to Incarceration in Monroe County

Events At:

Boxcar Books
310A S. Washington St.
Bloomington, IN 47401
(812) 339-8710
http://www.boxcarbooks.org

The Cinemat
123 S. Walnut St.
(812) 333-4700
Bloomington, IN 47401
http://www.thecinemat.com

A day of popular education that will explore alternatives to the current proposal of building new adult and youth jails in Bloomington. Through interactive workshops featuring community members, non-profits, experienced activists, and YOU, we will explore: What is the history of incarceration in Monroe County? What are some existing community alternatives to incarceration in Bloomington and other parts of the country? What have successful campaigns to challenge other jail constructions looked like? Several workshops will offer education, training, and networking opportunities for local folks questioning the need for new jails. The day’s events will culminate with special guest speaker Kai Barrow from Critical Resistance. This is an open event, with people from all backgrounds and political beliefs encouraged to attend.

Workshop One- 11:00 am, Boxcar Books
A discussion and Presentation on the History of the Monroe County Jail System

This workshop will begin with an interview from Indiana University Criminal Justice Department faculty member, Hal Pepinsky. Following the interview will be a facilitated discussion on the history of the jail, encouraging input from community members in piecing together the jail’s history and the sharing of personal and familial experiences with the jail.

Workshop Two- 2:00 pm, Boxcar Books
A Panel Discussion on Alternatives to Incarceration

This workshop will explore community alternatives to incarceration in Bloomington, as well as highlight successful initiatives from around the country. Representatives from different organizations will speak briefly about how their work keeps people out of jail by offering positive responses to poverty, homelessness, hunger, and conflict that enrich and restore community. Workshop attendees will be able to offer their own perspectives on what makes a community safe and whole.

Film Screening- 4:00 pm, The Cinemat
Yes, In My Backyard, A documentary by Tracy Huling

Financially-strapped communities are now begging for prisons to be built in their backyards. With plundering agribusiness, military-base closings and major industry relocation, incarceration is seen as the salvation of rural communities. Through the eyes of one farming-community-turned-prison-town, this hour documentary explores the increasing and multi-layered dependence of rural America on prison industries and subtly probes the profound implications of this dependence for both the keepers and the kept, and for our society’s understanding of and response to crime.

Workshop Three- 6:00 pm, Boxcar Books
Potluck Dinner and Discussion with Kai Barrow from Critical Resistance

Kai Barrow, one of five paid staff persons for Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization committed to ending society’s use of prisons and policing as an answer to social problems, will lead a discussion

For more press, interview, or further contact information, please use information below:

Judah Schept
(812) 219-3611
jschept@indiana.edu

Download a flyer for this event (PDF)

I’m always a little skeptical about new businesses opening in Bloomington, but Amy gave Rachael’s high marks:

So I wanted to alert you to a couple of cool things going on in town
that haven’t received much press yet and a couple of venues/locations
that should probably be added to the Let’s Go! Calendar. One of them
is Rachael’s Café, located at 300 E. 3rd Street, 812 330-1882. Rachael
is a member of the Indiana GLBT community, a huge supporter of the
arts, and a complete and utter sweetheart. Everyone should meet her.

She’s got a mission statement, but I’ll just put the first part here.

“Rachael’s Café grew out of a desire to create a friendly, inclusive,
peaceful atmosphere for all. Our mission is to bring understanding,
education and acceptance over a cup of coffee.”

Rachael’s Café serves gourmet coffees and drinks, homemade soups,
salads, sandwiches and entrees. She loves ethnic foods and healthy
nutritional options. I’ve been working with her to develop a more
extensive vegan menu. I bake vegan treats for her and have convinced
her to work more with raw foods, live/slow foods (homemade) like
smoothies, kombucha and saurkraut. The best part is that she’s going
to start serving loaded vegan hotdogs and vegan chili dogs!!! (Can you
tell that I’m excited?) I’m quite sure that she’s the only business
doing this from here to Chicago. So basically, I’m stoked that there
will be a new late-night, cheap food destination in town. The café has
wireless internet, good lighting, lots of walls and a large floor
space, perfect for music, dancing, movies, art shows or pretty much
anything.

Here are the dates for upcoming things at Rachel’s Café (missed the
deadline for last month, but I’ll post them anyway)

March
THURS 13th Shalom Writers Circle – Poetry Reading, 7:30-8:30pm
FRI 14th Bob Dylan Talent Show & Friday Night Open Mic (hosted by Alan
Ginsberg), 6pm
TUES 18th Gretchen Clearwater (Democrat for Congress, Indiana – 9th
District) hosts a political discussion about the pros/cons of the
Clinton and Obama campaigns, 7pm
WED 19th Verbal Terrorism Poetry by Jada B, 7pm
THURS 20th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 22nd Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
THURS 27th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI 28th Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 29th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.

Crystal made this month’s Let’s Go! calendar of Bloomington events and it’s awesome.  She included a lot of free films and lots of diverse events that span outside the punk scene.  She was kind enough to send me a scan of the calendar:

Link to full sized scan of calendar.

From a WFHB press release:

Bloomington Community Radio pre-empts normal programming for national special on homelessness

On Wednesday, February 20 and Thursday, February 21, Bloomington’s community radio station will once again unite listeners with people all across the country to raise awareness of the defining social justice issue of our time.  WFHB is one of more than 120 independent radio stations carrying the National Homelessness Marathon, a 14-hour live broadcast featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the U.S.  WFHB will air the entire fourteen-hour program, currently in its eleventh year, starting at 7pm on Wednesday and ending at 9am on Thursday, when the station returns to its regularly-scheduled programming.  This year is extra-special because the national broadcast will feature a segment produced by WFHB News Director Chad Carrothers.

“We slept out in a tent in the middle of winter, so that was kind of rough…we had like fifty blankets it seemed like and we were still cold…tryin’ to fight, we gotta figure out something, and I remember saying we gotta find something because we can’t be out here forever”

- 22-year-old Josh Morales, Shalom Center client

Josh and his father Abraham are featured in WFHB’s special segment “Father and Son: Generational Homelessness”, exploring how being homeless together has bonded them in a way that transcends typical father-son relationships.

As a local lead-in to the National Homelessness Marathon, WFHB will air an hour of locally-produced programming on these issues, including a feature-length interview with the Morales father-son team and a rebroadcast of the recent memorial service for the people who died homeless on our streets this past year.  Airing from 6-7pm on Feb. 20, the local programming will include Joel Rekas, director of Bloomington’s Shalom Center, a day facility for local people struggling with poverty and homelessness.

“It’s unacceptable in a country like the United States that this continues to be an issue”, says Rekas.  “We’re twenty years out now from this being identified as a major social issue, and unfortunately for most of us, a walk downtown in a big city involves stepping over people on the sidewalk and lying on park benches and we don’t blink an eye.  Folks experiencing homelessness have really become part of the urban landscape.”

There are approximately 4,000 homeless individuals and families living in poverty right now in the Bloomington area, according to Rekas.  That’s just one reason why WFHB News Director Chad Carrothers channels significant volunteer effort into local coverage of the issue.

“The best way to understand someone is to really listen to what they have to say,” Carrothers opines.  “Radio can be a very personal and intimate experience.  The stories told to me by people living on the streets of my town leave the mike wobbling in my hand.  The stark reality is overpowering.”

While WFHB News regularly produces its own stories and special features on homelessness, being a part of a national broadcast is a unique opportunity to bring different communities together.  The Eleventh Annual Homelessness Marathon will originate from Nashville, Tennessee.  It will be hosted by Nashville’s community radio station WRFN and a committee of activists on poverty and housing issues.

“As the Marathon has grown, its philosophy has evolved. When I started, I thought I had to scold people and tell them why they ought to care,” confesses the Homelessness Marathon’s director, Jeremy Weir Alderson.  “But now I know that Americans really do care, and that no matter how grave the failings of our society may be, homeless people aren’t on the streets because that’s where we, as a people, want them to be.  I now mostly look at the Marathon as giving people the reasons for what they already know in their hearts.”

The Homelessness Marathon isn’t a fundraiser; there isn’t a single pitch to donate a dime to anyone.  Instead it’s what Carrothers calls an “awareness raiser”:

“There’s no 800 number, there’s no slick ads for donations.  These are real people talking about what life is like for them.  They don’t want your money, they want to be understood.  They want you to think about how your life is different from theirs, but also how it’s similar.  They want your humanity.”

This special programming will air February 20th and 21st from 7pm to 9am on Indiana’s original community radio station, WFHB 91.3/98.1/100.7/106.3 FM and live on the web at www.wfhb.org.  More information is available by contacting News Director Chad Carrothers at news@wfhb.org or by calling (812) 337-7827.  Additional information about the Homelessness Marathon can be found at www.homelessnessmarathon.org.

I just heard that the ladies who normally do the show on Thursdays from 2-4p are doing an all 90s set next Tuesday from 4-6p.  WIUX is at 99.1FM in Bton and streaming on the web at wiux.org.

On behalf of Nu Alpha Alpha Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., I
would like to invite you to participate in our “Men Against Sexual Assault
and Domestic Violence.”  This program will be held at the Monroe County
Public Library’s Auditorium on Thursday November 15, 2007 from 7pm-9pm.
The program will be divided into three sections. First, a representative
from the Middle Way House of Bloomington Indiana will speak about sexual
assault/domestic violence.  Then, we will facilitate a dialogue on the
issues surrounding sexual assault/domestic violence. Last, there will be a
resource fair providing information about preventing sexual
assault/domestic violence and ways to support victims of sexual
assault/domestic violence.

Please join us for this important conversation!

Sincerely,

Russell Hollis, Basileus
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Nu Alpha Alpha Chapter
P.O. Box 8542
Bloomington, IN  47407

I decided to go to the IU library to check out the book The Suburbanization of New York: Is the World’s Greatest City Becoming Just Another Town? (ISBN-13: 978-1-56898-678-4) and found a wealth of other interesting books in the HN80.N5 section on the 7th floor. I also checked out There Goes The Neighborhood (ISBN-10: 0-394-57936-4), a book about the politics of race and class in Chicago neighborhoods, and passed on Praciticing Community (ISBN-10: 0-292-73118-3), a book about similar dynamics, but in Cincinatti, though it also looked good.

I heard an interesting recording of a Michael Parenti talk on Alternative Radio on WFHB on Monday, 2007-08-20 that was kind of all over the place, but mostly about how identity politics are exploited to divide people who are marginalized by race, gender, or sexual orientation. He also suggested that the division of power in this country often finds people with very different ethnic, gender, sexual, or other cultural identities on the same side of that power divide.

I read this article by Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the U.S., Welcome to the Terrordome, and other books about sports and politics. Zirin writes about the difficulties in sending copies of his books to a Texas death row inmate because

“It contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes or riots.”

The offending content, according to the TXDOC, included quotations such as this from baseball great Jackie Robinson:

“I felt tortured and I tried to just play ball and ignore the insults. But it was really getting to me. … For one wild and rage-crazed moment I thought, ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s “noble experiment.” … To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create.’ I could throw down my bat, stride over to that Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of [expletive] and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist. Then I could walk away from it all.”

I use del.icio.us for managing my bookmarks. Often, I want to access my del.icio.us bookmarks through my browser instead of having to visit the del.icio.us site. The del.icio.us Bookmarks Firefox add-on lets me do just that.

Roy F. Baumeister’s talk, Is There Anything Good About Men? is really interesting. It talks about the different ways that culture have used men and women to achieve its ends. It also talks about how a fundamental difference between men and women is that men favor wider, shallower relationships and women prefer closer, more intimate relationships and how this has driven the different cultural realms that are inhabited disproportionally by men and women. At the base of this, claims Baumeister, is the evolutionary reality that far more women reproduce than men. The wider, shallower, relationships or more risk-taking activities favored by men, in general, facilitates the differentiation that will allow some men to reproduce.

On a somewhat related note, this is a program that my friend is working with. The program is trying to organize
Men of Strength (MOST) Clubs in DC and other communities. A friend who works with the Middleway House, a Bloomington shelter for women and children affected by rape and family violence says that young men who stay in the shelter really lack a community of other males to critically examine their ideas of identity and masculinity and to model ideas of gender or relationships that differ from the violence that they’ve experienced. These clubs seem like a rare example of something that might begin to provide this support/education. The clubs are described as:

The
Men of Strength (MOST) Club has provided young men in Washington, DC and California high schools and colleges with a safe and supportive haven to connect with male peers while exploring masculinity and male strength.



Exposing young men to healthier, nonviolent models/visions of manhood, the MOST Club challenges members to define their own definition of masculinity and to translate their learning into community leadership, progressive action, and social change.

MOST CLUB AIMS TO:

• Provide young men with a safe, supportive space in which to connect with male peers through exploring notions of masculinity and male strength.
• Promote an understanding of ways that traditional masculinity contributes to sexual assault and other forms of men’s violence, perpetuates gender inequity, and compromises the health of men and women.
• Expose young men to healthier, nonviolent models/visions of manhood.
• Build young men’s capacity to become peer leaders and allies with women in promoting gender equality and preventing men’s violence.

I have Debian Etch with KDE installed as my workstation at work, and I had a hard time figuring out how to make Iceweasel (Debian’s all-free software version of Firefox) the default browser instead of Konqueror.  Turns out it was as easy as

$ update-alternatives –config x-www-browser

Free skin cancer screenings in May. Please call Karen at 812.353.5669 for more info or to schedule an appointment:

The skin screening clinics are May 8th and 22nd from 5-7 PM at the Volunteers in Medicine building, 333 E. Miller Dr. Appointments are scheduled every 10 minutes, allowing the 2 dermatologists enough time to look at each person thoroughly. The clinics were created with the intention of serving people who are uninsured or underinsured. Please do get the word out to anyone who you feel would benefit from this free service. They can call me Monday through Friday from 8-4:30 PM.

…

We will be offering free sunscreen packets starting in May, available for pick-up from the Olcott Center, 619 W. First Street, Bloomington. These packets are available in large quantity up to 250 if you know of any organizations that would be interested in picking them up from our office and distributing them to our members of our community. They can call me now and place their order.