Homelessness and the web

[Anitra Again]

I really admire the site in the article, as well as the intent of it.
But this issue is a bit more complex than "shouldn't the web show some
reality?" 

For myself, and a number of other homeless and formerly homeless
people on the web, circulating in cyberspace is one way to break down
stereotypes. "Yes, the person you have been discussing isaac Asimov
and Chaim Potok with for the last three hours is going off to sleep in
a homeless shelter tonight.  Is there anything else you want to know?"
We have a growing Internet presence: Real Change; the Homeless News
Service; the National Association of Street Newspapers of America;
Homeless People's Network (first an email list, now includes a website
with archived posts, soon to include a newsgroup); StreetWrites, a
writing workshop of homeless and low-income writers that includes a
local Seattle meeting, an online mailing list subscribed to by both
locals and non-locals, and two websites now, and posts quite frank
writing about the homeless experience; StreetLife Gallery, with both
the work of homeless artists and some of their personal stories; The
Real Change Speaker's Bureau; SHARE, Seattle Housing and Resource
Effort, has a large and growing website that includes the story, with
pictures, of the cleanup and creation of the BunkHouse, Seattle's
first shelter providing sleeping space for homeless people working
night-shifts;  WHEEL, Women's Housing Equality and Enhacement Effort,
also has their own website now, with pictures of the women and the
projects of this grassroots homeless empowerment group addressing the
concerns of homeless women.

All of these sites are contributed to by numbers of the homeless and
formerly homeless people participating in the programs, and they give
an effective demonstration of the realities of homelessness, based on
the response I've gotten from my portion of these sites.
  
I have my biography up on the web, and I am quite open about my
experiences with everything from bipolar illness to homelessness to
bookaholism, because this too is part of my own contribution to
breaking down the stereotypes and putting a human face on
homelessness, and the mentally ill, and even on computer geeks and
left-wing activists.

But some people who are homeless find that one of the advantages of
the Internet is that they *don't* have to announce their
socio-economic status.  It isn't visible, and they *can* blend into a
wider community and feel at home.  That is perfectly valid and I
support that activity for whoever needs it.  
 
BTW, although we all want more and we will and should work for it,
Seattle *does* have one of the best computer-access environments in
the country, as well as one of the most active grassroots incubating
cultures.  In a recent list compiled by the National Coalition for the
Homeless of grassroots homeless empowerment programs in the country --
programs improving the lives of the homeless, in which the homeless
themselves have a major voice in management -- four out of the
thirty-one were in Seattle.  And they all have websites.

And two more have been developed since the list was compiled. :)

You can explore all these websites, if you wish, through my main page
at http://www.speakeasy.org/~anitra/  -- what isn't part of "Anitra's
Clony of the Web", I have links too. And if you know of anything I've
missed, please let me know!

___________________
WRITE ON! -- Anitra
Save America's Vanishing Frompers!  Support Thalia, Muse of Comedy, 
in the Site Fights!  http://www.thesitefights.com/circus/side2.htm

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