The Official Dancing Deer Baking Co. Blog

In this decade, New York City has reached its highest levels of homelessness since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

In November 2008, 36,000 homeless people were sleeping in NYC shelters. Of this total, 15,800 were children, 14,100 adult family members, and 6,700 single adults.

Last year, more than 109,000 homeless children and adults relied on NYC shelters.

In the past decade, the NYC homeless shelter population has risen by almost 2/3.

10 months: the average stay for homeless families in the municipal shelter system.

It actually costs less per year to provide permanent housing for homeless families than to shelter them:
$36,000 per year: The cost to shelter a homeless family in the NYC Shelter System
$12,500 per year: The cost to provide a supportive housing apartment to a homeless family

Source for all facts

Do you have a story that extends beyond these statistics that you would like to share with Trish? Ride with her or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

The first time I crossed the rain-slicked trolley tracks they caught me completely off guard and I went down really hard. Lay on the road for a minute thinking about whether my hip might be broken – in an odd state of unconcern about traffic. It seemed that it had stopped around me. Several people were there and couldn’t have been nicer. After an exchange about my condition with one gentleman and my profuse thanks to him, he had said, “There are still good people around you know” Yes. Once I collected myself and was upright I asked if I could record what he’d said and whipped out my flip cam.

So I approached the crossing of the next set of trolley tracks with caution and thought I’d be fine. Bam. Down again but on the right side so now I was at least balanced out. Third try (yes I was sure I had the wet trolley track technique by the third try) I approached them perfectly perpendicular and with caution, bam, down again. Can’t remember where I hit.

So I caught up with the support van and decided that I’d just stop on the next crossing and walk it over and we’d try to find a route that gets us away from the tracks out of Philadelphia.

Then I rode safely and relatively slowly for a mile or two searching for the left turn that would get us away from the tracks and finally saw it. Was I too tired or my brain too scrambled or was there too much camouflage on the road or my glasses too full of rain drops to see that last set of tracks? Don’t know. But that last fall was hard to get up from. Support van was in sight this time and pulled up before I’d assembled myself. Nice policeman, also passersby. I climbed in with an agreement that I’d take a ride to the outskirts of town. Hoping for better roads. Giving me time to ice my knee which, happily, was hit in an entirely new way and so didn’t reinjure any of the things I’d already been icing.

I am sure that this is all just background for what will be a particularly bright point of light some time soon. Rembrandt’s best stuff is all atmosphere and darkness and it sits there quietly in the background and allows the moment of light to reveal something beautiful, the light effect. I am always looking for the light effect and building toward it when I’m painting. Just realized I’m doing that on this ride as well.

Latoya is the Administrative Assistant to Donnis. She is a success story. She was a teenage Mom, went through the shelter system, was a resident here at Help Philadelphia and made it out the other side. She got an education and a career and is an inspiration. Donnis guessed for me that this program runs about a 60:40 success rate if you define success as moving to permanent housing and independent lives.

I spent some time with Peaches. The details of her life are staggering. You name it; abandoned by her mother, never knew her father, family history of substance abuse, first cared for and then put out by a cousin, abusive relationship, young mother without a HS diploma. Yet she is a sunny and positive person with a stunning determination to do better. She’s in school and studying for something in the medical field and I’m afraid my brain is too fried at the moment to remember any more details. But her smile and her sweet little girl made an impression on me that I won’t forget.

The Lancaster, PA Intelligencer Journal reports on Trish’s visit to the Lancaster Transitional Living Center, referring to her as a “sort of modern-day Willie Wonka”.  The Deers agree…

Read about her visit here

It’s possible that one has clarity somewhere around mile 1,000 while breathing the beneficial (?) vapors of freshly spread manure. Or maybe it has the opposite effect.