A woman recently wrote on Facebook that she was interested in learning more about the homeless population. We, in America, rarely express interest in “the other.” We already know everything we need to know. They aren’t us. They are living wrong. And mostly, they’re gross. This was the entire premise of the whole “separate but […]
REGISTER FOR OUR TENT VILLAGE DISMANTLING EVENT HERE. It is Thursday, January 3 any time between 9am and 5pm. I want it to be Easter. While Christmas is my favorite holiday, Easter is, without a doubt, the coolest of all holidays, in my mind. Easter is what matters. There’s death on Friday. Saturday is this day of quiet. And on Sunday: HE IS RISEN! You barely […]
This picture is the stuff of a friend of mine who got evicted this morning. He lived in this apartment for the last year. He got evicted because a friend of his overdosed in his apartment. He had 4 friends over for his birthday. This person when outside, found one of the many dope boys […]
I see myself as a person that is attempting to Speak Truth to Power. The Quakers coined the phrase “Speaking Truth to Power” in the 1950s. It’s not a particularly comfortable place to be. Upsetting powerful people is never without risk. But it is a necessity. Every time there is progress in civil and human […]
I’ve often told budding entrepreneurs that success in business is a path laid with bricks of failure. You must train yourself to see each failure as one more hurdle you’ve overcome to get closer to your success. Failure has incredible value. “I’ve made every mistake in the book,” is a common phrase you will hear […]
My mom has been dead for a couple years now. I still haven’t really clearly understood the emotions of that experience. It’s like a punch to your spirit, I guess. Like an emotional flu. It’s not anguish. It’s more like a depletion. Like someone cut a limb off. I bring it up because the emotions […]
Last night I was berated by Akron City Councilman Mike Freeman at the weekly city council meeting. You can see his lecture to me here: https://youtu.be/JV2-4vDxMp0?t=4140 (you have to click on the link because they won’t allow us to embed the video on our site. It will take you directly to his speech.) This dressing […]
These are the official numbers from the City of Akron’s project to house all our homeless people at our tent village: 23 Housed 8 Self-Resolved – these people disappeared. 14 Not Housed This is those numbers visually: These are not inconsequential numbers. 31% of our people are currently not housed. Another 18% have just disappeared. […]
Sometimes I think we forget the country in which we live. A group of Americans once wrote: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That is the […]
He was shocked out of a deep sleep with her screaming at the tops of her lungs. It was early morning and still pitch dark. As his eyes slowly focused he could see her holding a golf club over his head. He was about to be teed up as the first hole in an early […]