Street Sights will be reporting daily on what goes on under the Crawford Street Bridge. Here is Saturday's report:
1/24/08
4:00 Transported donated blankets and tents from Mathewson to Crawford Street Bridge. Set up a large tent (ten person), a 4 person tent, and a two person tent. Judy, John, Jeff, Steve, Boots, and Megan help set up.
4 Reporter Tatiana, of the Projo, comes by, talks to almost everyone present
7:40 Ratty dinner!
7 Cathy and her husband from Midnight Cry come by with coffee and donuts
7:30 Elizabeth from Street Sights comes by with much appreciated coffee and donuts
10:00 Outreach throughout the city. Two (Schiz and Psycho) come in. Ernie refuses. No other folks seen in city--bedrolls but no people
11:15 John, Jeff, Steve, Megan turn in the big tent; Schiz and Psycho in the four- man
Overnight low of 9 degrees, wind chill below 0 degrees
Morning clear and cold -- plenty of donuts and iced coffee left
Planning our next moves -- more tents, banners, updating the
media, blogging on Street Sights, getting more people, lest we forget Paul Langlais (who died beneath the bridge). His memory should give us strength to fight on.The police drive by again.
2 comments:
This is awesome, for it's about time that something's noticed. I will continue to support this cause, by any means possible. Either by writing about it, and writing appropiate poetry fitting the cause, and it's being read...God bless & keep this going as long as humanly possible...Dave
There are nights when I go home and crawl into my nice cozy bed arrayed with soft warm blankets and pillows, belly full and try to get comfortable....yet I can seem to find comfort and peace. Something just isn't right.
I remember my nights of living in a box in the bushes in a corner of Pep Boys or the many nights that I slept in Roger Williams Park in downtown Providence. Then there are the memories of trying to find a car to sleep in right in the middle of the winter. With frozen fingers and smelling like Cape Cod Bay at low tide I try to ride the bus to find warmth. The problem is that society didn't accept me in that condition. People laughed and picked on me. I WAS VERY ANGRY. I was a very unloveable person. I was a very hopeless individual.
Today, life is very different for me. I have a home, a car, an income. I get to shower every day. Most importantly, I have a relationship with a Loving God who sent His son Jesus to lift me out of that situation. So why should I be uncomfortable when life has changed so much for me? Why am I not able to sleep? Why am I tossing and turning in my bed at night? Why am I sad and tearful?
It pains me to know that my brothers and sisters are outside in freezing cold, inclement weather living a lesser quality of life that people's pets, cats, dog, etc. I get in my car and I try to go to bring them blankets, food, coats, coffee, a warm smile and love. I want to pile them all up and take them home with me. I want them to know that they matter and that God loves them. Yet it is frustrating because I am a lowly ole disabled woman who doesn't have the resources to give them what they really need.....shelter.
To the Honorable Governor Donald Carcieri, I ask you: How do you sleep at night? How do you feel when you are at home in your mansion knowing that your Rhode Island citizens are living a life less than human? Do you ever think about them? Or do you just enjoy a nice meal by the fireplace with your lovely wife enjoying a cognac? I challenge you to come to Tent City for a visit. Make sure to wear your jeans (Do you own any jeans?) because it is quite uncomfortable sitting on a cold ground in a small tent. It is surely not what you are used to. I would like you to see some of the faces of these men and women. Perhaps if you look into their tear-stained eyes into the windows of their souls it may become personal to you.
When I am driving to see my friends that are homeless, I drive by many, many abandoned, foreclosed houses. Places that would make excellent living quarters for many of these residents.
I am only speaking for me here, but I am a drug addict who used drugs for over 33 years. I have been drug free for over 2 years. My moment of surrender was October 7, 2006 at 6:38 am. I go to the women's prison as a panel leader for a 12-step program for recovering addicts. Recently as I was leaving, I came across a woman who was being released from prison who was crying because she wanted to stay and they were making her leave. She didnt want to go back to the same abandoned building to live because she would have to be high to stay there.
When I go on my Midnight Cry ride, I come across so many of those women who were so excited about their recovery until release date and there is no place to go and now are back working the streets and getting high. Why is the system failing these women? It seems to me that if some of the money invested in housing them at prison were invested in housing them in recovery their stays at the Hotel ACI would be fewer and they could be rehabilitated.
So Honorable (?} Don Carcieri, I love you and it is not with malice that I challenge you to restore to your State whose motto is "Hope" some hope. I would love for you to take a ride with The Midnight Cry some night when we are picking human beings up and taking them to detox only to find out there is no bed because there is no health coverage.
It is time for everyone to come together in love to make a difference.
Paul Langlais fought and put his life on the line for this Country and he died a lonely death with no help from the Country he fought to save. Where is the sense in that?
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