By Andrew Fraieli Homelessness is not a choice. People do not choose or generally plan, to lose their home or source of income. People do not choose to rely on public property as a place to sleep at night, they do not choose to have the sidewalk as their living room and the park as a restroom. What people do choose is to make laws making this illegal, laws that force homeless people into a corner and give cause for them to be repeatedly arrested when they have no options. In San Francisco an ordinance was passed in 2010 that made it is illegal to sit or lay on the sidewalk between 7 A.M. and 1 ..read more

Following several serious or deadly attacks on homeless people this year, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a resolution Tuesday supporting any legislation that would add homeless people to the list of those protected by the state’s hate crime law. A homeless man and woman were attacked with battery acid while they slept in a Mission Hills park in October, and a man was arrested in September as the prime suspect in a series of beatings of primarily homeless people in Los Angeles and Santa Monica that left four dead and four others seriously injured. The California Penal Code defines a ..read more

Robin McKinney wasn’t wearing the right shirt. She also didn’t have all of her supplies. But the night was warm for mid-November, and that had gotten her worried. So she went anyway, pulling up to a Southeast Washington park hit hard by synthetic drugs, trying to make a difference on an issue she believes is usually met with indifference. The District had just seen another spike in K2 overdoses, this one smashing previous levels, with 1,054 overdoses in September alone. And McKinney, whose activism represents the latest chapter in the city’s ongoing struggle against the drug, wanted to get inf ..read more

The COSAC Foundation was originally established in May 1997 to partner with other social service agencies, in the area, that provided help to the homeless population. COSAC also independently feeds the homeless or anyone in need of food. As we saw a new issue arise, we answered with a new program to tackle it. Today we house, feed and find employment for anyone who is homeless. The COSAC Foundation has four main programs it focuses on: Homeless Outreach, Veteran’s Inn, Homeless Voice, and the Food Bank. Our Homeless Outreach program takes place monthly, or on an as needed basis. For example, d ..read more

I will never forget the father who told me, on a first date, about his transgender son, who was assigned female gender at birth but identifies as male. What stuck with me most wasn’t the fact that he had a transgender child, but the affectionate way he described his relationship with his son. He told me about how his teenager, who identified as a lesbian, came to him one night and explained that she was a he. The father told me that he didn’t fully understand at first what his child was saying, but he knew he loved him, and that was all that mattered. So he educated himself and supported his c ..read more

Until about a year ago, Holly Grant was living outdoors in downtown Fort Lauderdale’s homeless camp, with boxes and boxes and boxes of her belongings, all neatly stacked and covered with a tarp. Now, thanks to a recent lawsuit settlement with the city, the 75-year-old self-described “hoarder” plans to buy a van, de-clutter her life and start anew. “You can’t hold down a good woman,” Grant said from a gathering room in her low-income senior tower, as her Chihuahua, Sugar Pie Honey Bunch, nestled affectionately in her lap. Grant was one of 10 homeless people who sued the city for destroying thei ..read more

If you would have met Richard yesterday, you may have passed him by, silently wishing that he would not try to speak to you. You might have walked by him trying to avoid eye contact at all cost. However, if you met Richard today, you might have a different first impression. Richard’s appearance was changed in a matter of hours. Imagine how we could impact a person’s life if we took the time to understand more about them. Today Richard was having a fun day in the sun practicing his golf swing at a friends house in Davie, Florida. Richard set his eyes on his target before he raised his club for ..read more

At the Homeless Voice, we don’t want you to become homeless. We also want your housing cost such as mortgages to be as less as they can. If you save energy all year long it can amount to you paying an extra mortgage payment per year. When you do this you can save a ton of money on interest and shorten the length of your loan time. For instance, if you have a 30-year loan and you make a principal payment of about $1500 each year your 30 year loan just went to 20 years. Save money on your electric bill and pay it to your mortgage each year. You can do it. Yes, you can. Here are some tips from FP ..read more

Seattle’s largest businesses such as Amazon and Starbucks will have to pay a new tax to help fund homeless services and affordable housing under a measure approved by city leaders. The City Council unanimously passed a compromise plan Monday that taxes businesses making at least $20 million in gross revenues about $275 per full-time worker each year — lower than the $500 per worker initially proposed. The so-called “head tax” would raise roughly $48 million a year to build new affordable housing units and provide emergency homeless services. The debate over who should pay to solve a housing cr ..read more

It was about six years ago I would see this young lady come into the shelter and cut peoples hair. It would be 9 am when I saw her and she would leave at 10 pm the same day. After seeing her come in a few times a month for several months I finally went up to her and introduced myself to her. I thought to myself this is strange she comes in and does this every month for free and she does not at least try to meet me since she was putting in so much time. So I met up with her and found out that this is what she wanted to do for the homeless. I had no idea at first she was coming in to get communi ..read more