The Official Dancing Deer Baking Co. Blog

We cannot believe that after 15 days, Trish will be arriving home today! We want to thank you all for the interest and support of Trish’s Ride. Due to the inevitable nature (and complex logistics) of these kinds of rides, the public ride-in with Trish, scheduled for today on Boston Commons has been cancelled. We appreciate people’s interest in being part of the ride-in and regret any inconvenience that the last minute switch may have caused.

From my bb again so brief. Grueling day in wind and rain. Kept thinking there must be something wrong with my bike it was moving so slowly. Was caked in mud. Switched it out to the clean alternate with compromised frame (car accident) which gave me a psychological edge and kept riding. Sag wagon fell behind and when it caught up grabbed me to get to Salvation Army where the Mayor was waiting. But traffic held us back and we missed him by minutes.

And then magically all was good again as we were welcomed in to the last shelter of our trip. Same rush of energy and room full of creative happiness. I wish I'd kept track of every time some delighted child or adult told me they'd always wanted to make a gingerbread house. Tonight I was particularly taken with two teenage brothers who made some of the most surprising and wonderful use of found materials and worked meticulously and collaboratively.

Once again the staff was impressive and kind. The stories of how each family became homeless were familiar but unique.

We were thanked generously and yet it felt as always, that we owed the thanks and had so much to be thankful for.

Got to Old Lyme in time to visit with my failing father who was very perky this evening. He vaguely understood something about what I'd been up to but in any case was very proud. I can imagine what Mom would have said and done too. Probably some little hand painted sign and a rhyme and a hug and then some admonitions about being careful and perhaps not being too full of myself. And she'd have wanted to know all about the shelters and have an opinion about the state of the world and the lopsided distribution of wealth. I just remembered Mom's crusade (successful) to bring inner city kids down to enjoy the shoreline. It was controversial. Go Mom!

Not sure what we've accomplished. Will start trying to sort that out tomorrow. 120 mile last leg ride starts at 5 AM. Scott Chamberlin from Wheelworks and Ashley Sanders from the Blue Hills Cycling Club are riding with me. Will be soooo great to have company.

And of course when I reunite with Dimitri (15) and a few days later Eleanna also home from college I will be grateful with a new appreciation of home.

We encourage you to read this blog entry by John Moore of Chilmark Research entitled Ride with Meaning: Bringing Awareness to Homelessness. It is rich with John's insights and statistics on family homelessness and what the Ride is doing to bring attention to this issue. As important is the comment to this entry by Sherry Reynolds discussing the correlation between escalating health care costs and family homelessness.

If you read nothing else today, please read this.

Writing this one on my Blackberry standing waiting for path train back to Jersey city where we left our RV. It's about 9 PM. We spent the evening at the Jackson Family Residence Shelter, housing app. 90 families, in the Bronx. This was an unscheduled addition to our trip. We meant to be halfway to Hartford this evening for our last shelter visit tomorrow night.

But my meeting with Robert Hess, Commissioner of New York City's Department of Homeless Services (DHS) this morning resulted in our adding in one more event tonight in NYC. DHS is a $1 Billion agency with reputedly the most advanced and comprehensive programs in the nation. I was delighted to learn that one of their new programs is a scholars initiative with St. John's University based on the One Family Scholars Program Dancing Deer has been supporting for years. There is much to tell about what I learned and saw in NYC. But it's late and a long way to Hartford in the AM. At this point we hope to shut down our computers and be in bed by 11:30. So I'll circle back around on all of that later and just make a note about my conversation with the Commissioner.

He's been in this field in one way or another throughout his career and had knew many of the programs and people we have met. He financed the HELP USA project we were so impressed with in Philadelphia, knew Donnis Honeycut and shared our enthusiasm for him. We were in agreement that what we're talking about is poverty. Homelessness can be solved. But poverty is on the rise. While the city has been dramatically successful in reducing the number of individuals living on the streets, the applications for families are also dramatically escalating. In New York, everyone is guaranteed shelter. It's the law.

We turned ourselves inside out to add the shelter and it was a bit of a fire drill. But the decision to do it was an outgrowth of a conversation about the difference between effecting critical structural changes in society and effecting a change in our value system. I explained that these gingerbread events aren't about the structural stuff, they are philanthropy at a very personal level. We, as a society, use financial metrics to define our worth as human beings. When one spends the evening decorating gingerbread houses with a bunch of homeless families, those metrics melt away and we meet each other on a level playing field.

Further note: We enjoyed the Commissioner's company this evening and he jumped right in with the activities. The NY media wasn't interested and we'd hoped they would be so that we'd get some lift on our scholarship fundraising goals. But their absence was totally forgotten the moment we walked in the door and met the kids.

So we still aren't hitting the numbers, but we have given and received something joyous and special at each of these places.

Tomorrow, Trish will be riding through Connecticut and stopping at The Salvation Army Marshall House in Hartford. I thought I would take some time to research homeless statistics in this state. Even though Connecticut is the third wealthiest state in the country (source), homelessness is a growing problem.

According to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness:

Almost 4,366 people in Connecticut experienced homelessness on the evening of January 30, 2008. This "snapshot" of homelessness only included those who were living outside or in shelters or transitional living programs on that one evening of the year.

In 2008, there was a 13% increase in the number of homeless families across CT from 2007; including a 21% increase of sheltered families.

The most commonly identified reason for leaving a place of last residence was problems paying rent and we expect this number to increase even more as the economy worsens.

Adults in families living in shelters rose 16% from a year earlier and children of those families living in shelters rose 18% from the previous year.

Single adults living in shelters rose 6% from the previous year.

Who is homeless in Connecticut?
Families and adults are living in Connecticut's homeless shelters and also outside, in their cars, on the streets and in the woods. Veterans who are single adults and in families, including those from Iraq and Afghanistan, make up 1 in every 6 members of Connecticut's homeless population.

Why is homelessness on the rise?
The cost of housing has risen markedly, a likely contributor to family homelessness. Approximately one-third of adults in families reported that they were currently workinng at the time of the 2007 and 2008 counts. A household must earn $21.11 an hour - or about $44,000 a year - to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment in Connecticut according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Rental prices rose 40% between 2000 and 2007, well before the economic downturn tightened credit and caused an even more rapid rise in the demand and price of rental housing. In 2007, 24% of all renters earned less than 50% of median income and spent half or more of their income on rental costs.

What can be done to prevent homelessness?
Across the country, including in Connecticut, communities are working together to prevent homelessness-particularly among families who are homeless primarily due to economic barriers to housing. YOU can help the fight across the country by clicking HERE.

This year, the number of homeless families in Massachusetts has hit a record high.

But there is a beacon of light in the middle of the economic storm.

One Family is a Not-for-Profit organization that helps families end homelessness.

Tonight, the group will celebrate 38 women who were formerly homeless or at risk for homelessness. These women are all graduating from college, the result of the One Family Scholars program.

Denise Durham Williams, the executive director of One Family, and Candace Trundley, one of the 38 women being honored, recently joined the FOX25 Morning News with more on the program.