Category: Blog

There is this beautiful person, Simone Giertz, on YouTube. She builds robots.
She is fun, smart and, above all, a great role model for girls thinking about getting into science and technology.
Yesterday she posted this video:
“I have a brain tumor.”

She has just discovered that she has a brain tumor.
This was a big story on Reddit yesterday. Click here to read that thread.
The outpouring of support was, and still is, amazing. Everyone is wishing her the best and letting her know how important she has been to them.
But one person disagreed. He wrote:

Thinking and she’s annoying as fuck, that her “robot” act is fucking stupid and pointless and thinking that it’d be great if it finally ended isn’t “trolling”. It’s just having an opinion and hoping for an end to her idiocy.

and then he wrote:

Maybe, making retarded videos gives you brain cancer.

and then he wrote:

Why? You want more of her awful videos and shitty, unfunny nonsense shitting up the internet more? Good riddance, retard robot queen.

This is his profile: https://www.reddit.com/user/kyleortonallday
At the very best he’s doing it to get a response. At the very worst he’s a sociopathic killer. It doesn’t matter what the motivation. It’s pure evil.
It’s the same with every single school shooting. Of all the people on planet earth to kill, these people choose children. It’s pure evil.
It is all just destruction for destruction sake. Evil is real. And while it is a tiny cancer of hate, it makes big waves.
You have enough negativity and hate and destruction in your lives. It’s called the “news”. It’s the mouth piece for evil.
I try to focus on love and hope. Which truly are the largest, strongest forces in the world.
That said, it won’t stop evil from causing destruction and trying to kill anything good it can find.
I bring this up because rumors are yet again flying around Second Chance Village. This time they are coming from within the organization.
Before I get to today’s rumor, let me remind you of the untruths of the previous rumors.

• No. I’m not a drug dealer.
• No. I’m most definitely not the largest ice drug dealer in Akron.
• No. We don’t run a prostitution ring out of our backyard.
• No. We don’t sell drugs out of our backyard.

I’m sure there are others. But I’m not going to spend time remembering them right now.
Today’s rumor is: I’m funneling all the money from the charity and putting it in overseas bank accounts.
First of all, like my supposed ice making career, I have no earthly idea how to send money overseas. I’ve never had any interest in learning how to hide money. One of the reasons I got into working with the homeless is my incredible lack of interest in money in general. I’m not a great business person. I’m just OK. And that has everything to do with my lackadaisical interest in money.
Second of all, this is a brand new charity. What kind of money do you think we are bringing into this organization? Last year we made: $24,431.71. This year so far we’ve made: $17,094.66.
Here are our bare bones expenses for 2018:
Expenses
Staff Salary $0
Utilities $18,000
Rent $11,000
Labor $0
Supplies $8,000
Advertising $3,000
Total Expenses $40,000
Do you know who makes up that difference of income and expense? My family. Specifically, my wife. She is running our main business, SageRock, all on her own as I try to get the charity to a break even point.
So, I guess in the mind of the rumor spreaders I’m somehow skimming money off the top of the organization illegally and then paying the charity to survive. It’s the most ridiculous, convoluted system I could possibly imagine.
If an actual person that knew what they were talking about was truly skimming money off a charity they’d just pay themselves a bigger and bigger salary. There is no need to illegally steal money from a charity. Just pay a salary.
We have no paid people at this point. I work full time at the charity for free. Actually, less than free considering we are in the hole every month in expenses.
And that’s what evil is: stupid, unthoughtful and just straight out hateful. Evil will do anything and say anything to destroy anything.
To the people that are spreading these rumors (they are definitely reading this). Good job! You had a great effect.
People are now telling me that we should fix the charity’s van that needs a transmission and ball joints with all the money we’re hoarding.
I’ll probably need to sell the van now.
That van has been used for many months to take villagers to doctors appointments, mental health appointments and housing appointments.
So, congratulations on that impact you had.
The reason I am going to need to sell the van is because you’ve also angered our largest donor. So, they are stepping back on paying our utilities and our insurance for the charity. (Oh. You didn’t know that our water bill is $600 – $800 per month and we have to have special insurance because we have a tent city in our backyard?)
This donor is angry because people inside the very organization they are helping fund are ungrateful. Most people are not altruistic. Most people would at least like a “thank you.”
Evil doesn’t care.
Just kill and destroy and ravage. That’s the plan. That’s what evil brings to the conversation.
This is, of course, the story of history.
Jesus on the cross. Martin Luther King Jr. shot in the face. Socrates who was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock for “corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing strange gods.”
But of course, the killers, the evil, never wins.
This is just a minor setback for us at Second Chance Village. We will use this time to get stronger.
I will be posting ALL our finances online (probably on our member’s only site.)
We will be shoring up our finances in a variety of ways. We will likely need to get more structured about our cash donations that come into the organization through the store and other ways.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
And the mystical side of me says: This is why God put me here.
I’ve dealt with mutinies before. I know how to handle them. This does little more than make me mildly irritated. I’ve lost way more sleep over way bigger problems than this.
To evil I say this: You will never win. You will never succeed. You bring nothing to the planet except disease and pestilence. There is nothing you can do to win this. Malign me. Hate me. Kill me. You will only make me stronger.
 
 

Do you know the scenes in movies where the main character has this sudden flashback of their life?
Images flood the screen, cutting faster and faster from one scene to the next scene. It’s usually accompanied by a flapping sound of wings.
I just had one of those kinds of moments in my life.
It started with a friend of my Zuill Bailey.  He’s a Grammy award winning cellist.
I was talking to Rocky, my wife, yesterday about all the trouble we got into as teenagers. I was also telling Rocky about how he had the ability to play music in the correct style seemingly just by channeling the composer. Like he’s a musical, spiritual medium.
I was playing that conversation over in my head this morning. Then another moment came.
One of the all time greatest cello teachers to ever live called me one morning in 2003. Stephen Kates was dying. He needed help getting some messages out through the Internet. He knew I understand the Web. He was my cello teacher one summer in California. Here’s his New York Times obituary. 
And then of course there is my closest friend in the world, Jamie Johns. He’s the musical director of the touring Phantom of the Opera. He’s a composer, director and pianist.
Of the endless memories I have of Jamie, one that pops in my head from time to time was a piano trio coaching we were having in college. This professor was commenting on his pedaling (a big part of the piano is how you handle the pedals on the floor). He said it was some of the best pedaling he had ever heard.
Jamie is super human. He performs in countless areas at extremely high levels. “Beyond human” is pretty much all I can say.
The images and memories just kept coming. PhDs. Lawyers. Teachers. Professors. Artists. Conductors. Priests. Ministers. Faster and faster. The images just kept coming. The people. The conversations. The moments. The places. All these moments of being touched by greatness. Over and over and over again. Like a story line that lead all to now. Leading to this moment.
All these great people. Coming into my life. Effecting me and guiding me in ways that I can’t even truly appreciate.
And then they stopped.
In my mind, I found myself in the day center of Second Chance Village. I was surrounded by the homeless.
I wasn’t surrounded by the homeless as people who were in need of me. I was surrounded by the homeless as people who I needed.
The homeless are now my mentors. They are are now my guides. They are now the great people I am lead by every single day.
I tell you this story because I want you to think about all the greatness YOU are surrounded by. That YOU have been touched by through out your life.
YOU are also constantly being shaped and guided by great people, places and things. They are showing you wisdom. They are offering you guidance. They are connecting you to knowledge and understanding that is much deeper than you can possibly understand.
This is how God speaks to you.
God talks to you through people you meet on the street. God speaks to you through songs you hear on the radio. God speaks to you through your pets. God speaks to you through your friends.
You Just Have To Listen.
While God speaks to me occasionally through the accomplished people in my life. He now speaks to me every single day through the homeless. They are more connected to God and the universe than any people I have ever met.
They have been stripped of the pollution of society that causes us to lose sight of our connection to the world and the universe. It’s like light pollution that causes us to not be able to see the stars.
They are incredibly connected and in touch people.
The homeless are like the Buddhist monks that beg for food and money so they can focus on liberating their minds. But the difference, of course, is that the homeless have been forced into a monastic lifestyle. They have been imprisoned into desperate poverty by a society that refuses to look at them and deal with them.
The irony is that these homeless become more and more connected to God by their society-imposed exile. And society refuses to look at them even to find a closer connection to God.
I absolutely believe God takes shape in the homeless waiting for the “believers” to come talk to Him.
Would they see Him if they walked right by Him as he pleads for food? Most can’t see God when He’s standing right in front of them.
God is that panhandler they avoid making eye contact with. God is the person they walk by at lunch begging for change on the sidewalk. God is the family down the street that has no food for their kids.
But fear not.
God knows that to look Him in the eye is incredibly painful and difficult. He still totally loves you.
I just want you to be open to the greatness that is all around you. Be open to the message that is being delivered to you.
 
 

I get angry.
I was crafting an angry blog post in my head this morning as I drove to work. I was angry about people that are irrationally and ignorantly afraid of the homeless. I wanted to create a fire and brimstone post about the true evil in our communities, aka the drug dealers that live in houses.
I just kept getting angrier and angrier.
Before I could get to work I had to drop off some clothes donations. I often take clothes we can’t use to:
Heart 4 the City
954 Eastland Avenue
Akron, OH 44305
They have a great clothes drop off facility.
As I was unloading clothes I usually leave the door of my truck open with Spotify playing. It makes unloading a truck load of clothes a little more enjoyable.
There was a small group of people working in the community garden at Heart 4 the City.
A man with some tools walked by and said, “You’re Sage!”
I have a complicated relationship with receiving gratitude and notoriety. It embarrasses me. But it also means the homeless are being remembered.
That man who stopped me was Stan Rittgers from the Summit Food Coalition.
He started talking to me about his garden at the church.
He talked about how he had a program for kids. They plant pumpkins.
He tells the kids that when they drive by to show their parents what they are growing. Each kid has their own plants.
He said he does this so that the kids have a sense of contribution. That they feel like they are creating something of their own.
Humans, he said, need more than the nourishment of food. They need the nourishment of mattering. Of contributing. Of not just taking but contributing.
Now. What I’m about to tell you is going to sound strange to some people. It sounds strange to me because I have not historically been this type of person.
But I am telling you that since I’ve been working with the homeless I feel like I have been directly plugged into the universe. You can call it whatever you prefer: God. The universe. The spirit.
But I hear it ALL the time now.
In fact, it’s to the point where I’m pretty sure the universe is talking to me constantly. It is guiding me and shaping my path.
This is crazy talk. I know.
Most of my rational friends will tell me that it’s all just a coincidence. That I’m hearing what I choose to hear.
I certainly can’t prove this. But I’m telling you: It is real!
Stan was telling me not to write about anger and what is upsetting me.
He was telling me to stay on point: to write about love. To write about humanity and what it means to be a human.
During this entire conversation the music in the background was the song: God’s Plan by Drake.

I been movin’ calm, don’t start no trouble with me
Tryna keep it peaceful is a struggle for me
Don’t pull up at 6 AM to cuddle with me
You know how I like it when you lovin’ on me
I don’t wanna die for them to miss me
Yes I see the things that they wishin’ on me
Hope I got some brothers that outlive me
They gon’ tell the story, shit was different with me
God’s plan, God’s plan

Here’s the video. It’s really good:

 

WHEN: Tonight, Tuesday April 24, 2018 at 6:15pm
WHERE:  Rockynol, 1150 W. Market St., Akron Ohio in the new Stonebridge Grill Room
This meeting is open to the public. It is a buffet dinner that costs $10.
Zack Milkovich, the Ward 10 Councilman, invited me to speak at his Kiwanis group in West Akron.
I LOVE these opportunities to share the story of Second Chance Village.
There is so much misunderstanding of the homeless population.

• Lazy
• Drunk
• Addicts
• Won’t work
• Dangerous

We’ve learned to stop stereotyping people like African Americans and Latinos. But it’s still very socially acceptable to stereotype the homeless. And, of course, stereotypes are never based in reality. They are based in fear and ignorance.
So, trying to change the perception of the homeless is something I love trying to do.
But then the next layer of conversation gets really interesting:

• Why are people “choosing” to live in tents?
• And are tents the best we can do for Americans?

This is an onion where we have to spend time pulling layer after layer away to see what is really going on with this population.
This is interesting because of where America is financially. The stock market is at an all time high:

And unemployment is at a record low:

Yet Americans are still living in tents.
And then of course there is this:
Trump Budget Would Slash HUD Funds by $8.8 Billion, Ask Assistance Recipients to ‘Shoulder’ More Housing Costs

President Donald Trump’s recently released Fiscal Year 2019 Budget proposal included major cuts to the Department of Housing. The budget would slash department funding by about $8.8 billion, or 18 percent of 2017’s enacted levels.

This will absolutely, 100% without a doubt, increase the homeless population. So these refugee-style camps are going to be more of a thing.
My point is: This population is not going away. In fact, when we have another recession and if there are cuts to HUD this population will increase.
So, we need to spend time and effort coming up with a plan. It’s not going away.
I’d LOVE for you to come to the meeting tonight.
Here is the write up from the Beacon Journal on the event: (see you tonight, hopefully)
Tent city pioneer headlines Kiwanis Club event
Published: April 23, 2018 – 2:40 PM
Beacon Journal/Ohio.com
Tent city pioneer headlines Kiwanis
AKRON: Sage Lewis, homeless activist, auctioneer, marketer and unsuccessful mayoral candidate, will speak at the Kiwanis Club of West Akron 6:15 p.m. Tuesday at the new Stonebridge Grill Room at OhioLiving Rockynol, 1150 W. Market St.
At the $10 buffet, which is open to all, Lewis will talk about progress at his tent city for the homeless, Second Chance Village in Akron.
For additional information about the Kiwanis Club, please contact Mike Marks at westakronkiwanis@gmail.com or 330-475-9413.

If you’ve never been to Yellowstone National Park there aren’t enough adequate words to describe the beauty and magnificence of that place. It transcends human vocabulary.
That’s how I feel about our gathering at last night’s Akron City Council meeting.
Supporters and villagers all came to the Monday, April 9, 2018 Akron City Council meeting to make our case for why we believe Second Chance Village should be allowed to exist. We have officially put in our paperwork for our Conditional Use Permit to allow Second Chance Village to continue to exist.
The stories I heard last night were beyond incredible. They were touching, heart warming, logical, rational. They were just amazing. YOU were amazing.
Here are a recap of the people who spoke:
Paul (OP) – He is a resident of Second Chance Village. He is the physical manifestation of bravery. He has a speech impediment. He had told me earlier that he doesn’t speak in public because it gets worse. He spoke magnificently. He brought the hundreds of signatures many people from Second Chance Village collected. He spoke about the collaboration of the many agencies that collaborate with us.
Ducky (Annette) – She is a resident of Second Chance Village. She spoke about her High End Store she runs. She talked about how the homeless are “here and there. We are everywhere. I am Ms. Baker.”
Ron K. – He is a former resident of Second Chance Village. He talked about how he was once a Second Chance Village resident. And now he has a “beautiful” apartment in Barberton. He talked about how there is nothing like having help when you need it.
Ryan S. – He is a supporter of Second Chance village who was formerly homeless and now owns his own home. He talked about how passionate he is about this cause. He is no longer homeless. And now he has a home he is renovating himself.  He talked about how Second Chance Village is a tribe made of survivors.
Melissa “Rocky” Lewis – She is my wife and on the Board of The Homeless Charity. She thanked the city for how they have received us thus far, how other cities have not responded in such a measured and compassionate way. She referenced the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty 2017 study titled “Tent City USA“. And these two articles on a very successful tent city in New Mexico: In New Mexico Tent City, a Glimmer of Hope – The New York Times and Structures improve life at Camp Hope. She talked about shelter barriers like contracts, no safe storage. No day shelters for people that work night jobs. She talked about the cost of sweeping camps is costly and ineffective.
Gary M – He is a resident of Second Chance Village. He talked about how Second Chance Village is exactly what it is… a Second Chance. He talked about how the court system keeps our mistakes on our records for years and years. He talked about how Second Chance Village is now helping him start his own charity to help the homeless get into homes.
Laurie B – She is a supporter of Second Chance Village. She talked about how the homeless are not a group. They are individuals. She talks about how she has made friends with the villagers. She talks about how she has tons of friends at Second Chance Village. She talked about how Second Chance Village has made us look at the homeless.
Elliot – He is a resident of Second Chance Village. He talked about how it is a safe environment for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. He talked about how other options don’t fit his needs and aren’t a place he feels safe. He talked about how Second Chance Village buys birth certificates, IDs and gets social security cards. He talked about how his parole officer said Second Chance Village is a good place to be.
Chana – She is a resident of Second Chance Village.  She talked about how her fellow villagers helped her setup her tent and brought her to the food pantry to get groceries. She talked about how grateful she is for the help she has gotten at Second Chance Village and how people there care.
Ernie T.  – He is a former resident of Second Chance Village. He said that he was safe at Second Chance Village. He didn’t have to sleep in a doorway and fear for his safety. He believes he’d still be on the street if it wasn’t for Second Chance Village.
Bill – He is a former resident of Second Chance Village. He came to us after being in an intensive treatment facility. He helped us early on to bring structure to the facility. He helped structure the security team and the camera surveillance. He now has a job and works with 37 treatment centers across the US helping people get treatment they need. He was hired right out of Second Chance and now drives a brand new vehicle.
Deloris – She is a resident of Second Chance Village. She talks about how closing Second Chance Village doesn’t add any more beds in shelters or addiction facilities. It doesn’t add a single bed for people that want recovery. She talks about how you can’t just throw people away.
John B. – He is a supporter of Second Chance Village. He is a minister and talked about how Second Chance Village relates to Christianity. He talks about how our greatness is measured by how we treat our most weak. He talks about how these people look out for each other. He talks about how Second Chance Village is a model neighborhood. He talks about how Second Chance Village is a model for innovation and creativity. “Just leave them alone. Let them build it themselves.”
Amy – She is a resident of Second Chance Village. Humanity demands human dignity. “If we have nowhere to go. Where would we go? Why would we be treated as outcasts? Where would we be disposed of? We are the product of a family. We are a consequence of society. We are struggling in society. It isn’t like we’ve chosen to live our lives where people look at us as less than human. What do we do? We look at other nations that outcast men and women. But what happens when we do it in our own country? How can we support closing down anything that supports people trying to find some kind of foundation?
Beth V – She is a supporter of Second Chance Village. She is with Akron City Repair Project. She talks about a “sense of place.” She says she has seen the villagers’ sense of place and dignity that she hasn’t ever seen before. She talked about how it allows people to get their stuff together so they can have the chance to move forward. She talks about how other organizations in Middlebury are extremely supportive of Second Chance Village.
And we had a neighbor come by and offer her support. She said that you can’t even see Second Chance Village from the street.
This is the article Doug Livingston from the Akron Beacon Journal put together on the event: Homeless camp finally seeks proper zoning through City Hall
Here is Channel 3’s coverage: wkyc.com | Push to keep Akron’s ‘Tent City’ open moves forward
Here is the Channel 3 video:
http://www.wkyc.com/video/news/battle-for-tent-city-continues-in-akron/95-8071418
Here is the front page of the newspaper today.

Here’s Cleveland.com’s coverage: Second Chance Village supporters rally at Akron City Council to support homeless encampment | cleveland.com
This is WKSU: Homeless Community in Akron Looks to Comply with Zoning Rules | WKSU
Here is the video of all these comments:
https://www.facebook.com/doug.livingston.92/videos/1637546762948987/
That’s all I can say. You are beautiful, amazing, strong, brave, awesome, wonderful people.
We are on the right side of history. America will do better by its homeless. I truly believe that revolution will be marked in history as starting in Akron Ohio.
Stay strong. Be brave. Have hope. Come to this with endless love. And  we’ll win.
Thank you.
 
 

WHEN: APRIL 09, 2018 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
WHERE: CITY HALL – 166 SOUTH HIGH STREET, AKRON 44308
Akron City Council meets in Council Chambers on the 3rd floor of the Municipal Building, 166 South High Street, Akron 44308. The public is invited to speak to Council at the end of every meeting during a public comment period. Speaking is limited to 3 minutes per citizen and to matters within Council’s authority.
Second Chance Village is entering its do or die phase of existence.
We are being required to submit a Conditional Use Application for the city.
The city has told us to submit our application as a “Conditional Campground.”
Several people have told me on the side that they think it’s a trap. That the city will never allow a campground within city limits. And that’s why they are having us submit it as such.
I refuse to descend into a conspiratorial mindset. Suspicious thinking never leads anywhere good.
So I come to this process full of hope and belief that the city of Akron cares about all of its citizens and wants no one to be left languishing in the gutters and under the bridges.
Ultimately, City Council will decide our fate.
To begin this process we are all going to attend the Monday, April 9 City Council Meeting. We would love for you to come join us in support at this meeting.
If you would like, you will be able to speak for 3 minutes. But otherwise, just attending will show city council that the community cares about its homeless and we can do better than what we’re currently doing.
I’d recommend getting there at 6:30.
You are welcome to speak from your heart.
But I’ll offer this suggestion if you’d like any tips:
This movement has been so successful because of you and your support of this cause.
We have intentionally tried to be warm and inviting to the entire community. We have created a movement based on faith, love and hope.
There is always a place and time for agitation and tension. But personally I feel we aren’t there yet.
The homeless of Second Chance Village have created something beautiful for themselves. They have asked nothing of the city or the government. All they have asked is to have the opportunity to quietly live and build something for themselves.
So, telling stories of the great people you’ve met and the experiences you have had would be great.
We need to give City Council the benefit of the doubt. To do the right thing.
We definitely have some great supporters on City Council. We want to inspire the others to allow us to continue our work.
We want to share the amazing community the homeless have all shown us here at Second Chance. We want the entire Akron community to join us in working together as one.
That’s the message I’ll be sharing on Monday night.
I truly hope to see you there.
 

I had forgotten today was his 50th anniversary of being assassinated in Memphis Tennessee.
On one hand, that’s a little strange because I consider MLK to be my primary role model. On the other hand, I forget a lot of things.
I had been thinking a lot about him as I drove to work today.
The mystical side of me thinks his memory was in the air so that’s why I was thinking about him.  The practical side of me thinks his memory was in my mind because of the importance of this month for Second Chance Village.

The God at Dr. King’s Kitchen Table

There are countless stories of Dr. King’s that are iconic representations of bravery, calmness and steadfast belief in the nonviolent approach to protesting. You really can’t believe his resolve when you read about it.
But there is one story I love the most.
He came home late Friday night, Jan. 27, 1956.  He was tired and on edge. His phone rang and the sneering voice on the other end said, “”Leave Montgomery immediately if you have no wish to die.”
His fear surged. He was shaking. He put on a pot of coffee and fell into a kitchen chair.
This was the beginning of what he was to declare his most profound spiritual experience.
He describes it in his book Stride Toward Freedom.

I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.
The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.”
At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: “Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.” Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”

Three days later a bomb blasted his house and his family escaped harm by a hairsbreadth. “Strangely enough,” King later wrote, “I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it.”
His revelation that night has always had a profound impression on me.
I get scared. I ask: Am I screwing up my life? Am I throwing away all the things and money my wife and I have collected for the last twenty years? Am I going to be financially ruined? Am I going to be physically attacked?
The answer is always this moment Dr. King experienced that one midnight in 1956.
“Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.”
I often ask myself: “Would Martin Luther King be proud of me?”
I look to him and his spirit as my guide and my strength.
I then remind myself that I am healthy, strong, educated and given a great opportunity to make a difference.
Everything I’ve experienced has prepared me for this moment in my life. As a student of literature, music, history and art in college I’ve learned the lessons of our past. As a businessman and entrepreneur for the last 20 years I’ve learned money, strength and capitalism. As a father and husband I’ve learned responsibility.
And all of it culminates in the life and leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.
I know I’m not half the man he is. He is everything I want to be and likely will never achieve. But that’s the point of a role model. They are a vision. They are an ideal. They are the mountain top.
Martin Luther King Jr. and others like him are important because they hold up the ideal of what is possible. They are the 4 minute mile. They are the lunar landing. They are the cure for polio.
A role model pushes you to your limits. They give you hope and strength.
We need them. 
Having Martin Luther King Jr. as part of the American historical landscape is more valuable than we can even imagine. His importance will likely be remembered for as long as there are written historical records.
In my most private moments, when I’m feeling strong and confident, I sometimes say to myself, “What if I could be as great at Martin Luther King Jr.?”
It’s an arrogant thought. I feel embarrassed even asking the question. But then I give myself a break. This is how the world gets better. When people ask, “What if I could be as great as…” we all move up a tiny notch in civilization.
My wish for you on this 50th anniversary of his death is that you have a role model. That you have someone you aspire to be. It adds a wonderful glow to your journey through life.
 

I try not to think about the likelihood of something.
That’s simply because I see “impossible” things happen all the time.
There is a rover running around Mars right now.
We’ve landed on the moon 6 times.
A convertible is on its way to start an orbit around Mars

Crazy things happen all the time.
So it’s silly to talk about how this or that isn’t going to work.
But a tent city? Come on. How is that ever going to work?
And yet… I think there is a slight possibility that we can make this happen.

The Government requires tents and other not-meant-for-human-habitation solutions.

The reality of the situation is: Tents are part of the entire system created by our homeless system in America.
There is an amazing rapid rehousing program in Akron called Home Again. It is run through Info Line.
We’ve had many people at Second Chance Village use Home Again to get into housing. I’ve seen people get into a house in as little as 2 days. It’s amazing!
But there are requirements in order to qualify for the Home Again program.
In order to qualify you must either:
Be an Individual/family is sleeping in an emergency shelter
OR
Be Sleeping in a place not meant for human habitation (cars, parks, abandoned buildings or tents)
They require that I write a letter verifying that the person applying for Home Again is actually sleeping in a tent at Second Chance Village. In fact, they often come here to look at the tent.
I just wrote 26 of these letters for our residents last week.
And get this: if you start staying on a friend’s couch for any time during the application process you lose your Home Again qualification.
So, tents aren’t just something that are a bizarre bi-product of homelessness in America. You actually need to be living in places not meant for human habitation, such as a tent.
It would seem to me that if making people live in less than human conditions is a required part of the system we should probably actually build it into the system.

We need more options.

Just this morning I was working with a person that got kicked out of Second Chance Village for fighting.
I nearly begged him to go to our one and only shelter for men in Akron: Haven of Rest. He refused to go. He said he couldn’t handle the 8:00pm lights out bedtime and mandatory religious services 3 times a day. He would rather sleep shelterless on the street than go there. The human spirit is a funny thing. We as a species need more than just food and shelter. It appears that we need dignity. And apparently we’re willing to die for it.
(While I was writing this, Community Support Services did a conference call with our tri-council. We’ve all agreed to give this person one more chance. See: this is yet another example of how we fit into the program. This person has significant mental and physical health issues. If he doesn’t stay with us he has nowhere else to go. There is nothing else out there for him. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’ll die on the street.)
It is undeniable that we need something else for these people. Second Chance Village is a low barrier, low cost solution for these people. If Second Chance Village shuts down where will these people go? And how long will it be before we build another facility for them? Where will that money come from? How hard will it be to build up a similar amount of public good will that Second Chance Village has created?
We are so close here. All the city has to do is say “yes.”

Akron Might Actually Be Open To Second Chance Village

This is the craziest part of the story of them all.
Going into this I knew full well a tent city is asking a lot for a city. Imagination, creativity and vision are not the strengths of a city. Following rules and doing what every other city is doing are the strengths of cities. This is especially true in the Midwest.
It almost doesn’t even count that Seattle had 6 city approved tent encampments. You can read about them on the actual city site here.
On that page they write:

Currently, there is insufficient supply of low-barrier shelter beds for any given night and outreach workers often find that the City’s emergency shelter system does not meet the needs of people living unsheltered.

This is like going to an AA meeting and saying: “Hi, my name is Sage and I’m an alcoholic.”
They straight up admit that their “emergency shelter system does not meet the needs of people living unsheltered.”
It’s easy for a Midwestern rustbelt city to say: “You know how those liberal West Coast cities are. They’re crazy.”
But the fact the matter is: tent cities, sanctioned and unsanctioned, are all over America. This isn’t a “liberal city” problem. This is an American city problem.
And if I didn’t know any better I am starting to think that some in the City of Akron are starting to see that reality.
This past Friday I got a visit from a woman from the Health Department. Someone from the city asked her to come by to help me fill our our conditional use paperwork. An unknown person from the city told her to come by and told her exactly how the paperwork needed filled out.
She also mentioned that Hepatitis A is getting closer to Ohio. It’s spread in homeless encampments that don’t have hand washing  facilities. We provide showers, bathrooms and hand sanitizer everywhere. We work very closely with the Health Department to keep our villagers healthy. You simply can’t provide those services in random campsites that aren’t organized.
We’ve also had about 8 city council leaders come by our facility.
In particular, Tara Samples, Ward 5 council leader, has been bringing food multiple times a week. She is running with Dennis Kucinich for governor of Ohio so she has a lot of leftover food from fundraisers.

My instinct is that we have shown them that we offer a safe place for men and women that have nowhere else to go.

And then there’s the Community

More than any other word describing Second Chance Village, I hear the word: Community.
Other homeless leaders, community leaders, supporters and villagers all say the same thing: We excel at creating a sense of community for these people.
This is critical because these people usually come to us completely broken. They have absolutely nowhere else to turn.
We then show them love and support and immediately get them involved in the community. Each villager is required to volunteer one hour a day to help keep our center operating. And there is a LOT to do. Security, laundry, clothing room, cleaning, the store, food pantry, feeding the villagers, maintenance. It’s a huge operation.
The people we help become the people that help others. It immediately fills them with a sense of purpose, meaning and integrity.
It reminds them that they aren’t useless. They have a place in society. We need them and we are thankful for them.

I had my doubts

As a leader you don’t want to admit you think something you are creating isn’t going to work. That’s deflating for all involved. In my head I basically just say to myself: “I’ve seen crazier things work.”
But I was, and still am, unsure if city leaders have the vision and bravery to accept something so new and innovative as Second Chance Village.
We have a recording of a zoning official at a Ward meeting publicly saying they are not going to recommend approval of Second Chance Village. So, I’m still highly suspicious.
But this ultimately goes to City Council for a vote. They decide whether or not it stays or goes.
We will be submitting our conditional use paperwork in early April and city council will likely vote on it in May.
It seems incredibly brutal that a dozen people have the ability to say: Get out of those tents and go somewhere else. We don’t care where you go as long as it’s not Second Chance Village.
And while I won’t quit, the reality is that getting to this point cannot be underestimated. We have had a massive swell of community support and publicity. I simply can’t imagine that we’ll be able to build that kind of momentum again.
Our day center should continue to thrive and grow regardless of what happens to the village. But the elephant in the room is coming up with a solution for where these people are going to sleep.
If Second Chance Village gets shut down they will just go back to the woods. Alone. In danger. Isolated.
There isn’t a better solution just around the corner.
I am telling myself that we have a greater than zero percent chance of this succeeding. But I don’t know how much greater.
The possibility of us getting to stay is there. That’s all I need. A possibility, no matter how small, is still a possibility. So I’m hopeful. I’m optimistic.
My approach to this has always been to come at it with endless faith, love and hope. We don’t need any more anger and hate in America right now.
I believe that faith, love and hope are the best tools to climb this mountain. We can do it. We just have to believe that we are better than letting our fellow Americans rot and whither in our ditches, under bridges and on our streets.
We just have to be brave enough to find the love these people need.
 

We are in an era at the moment where the super trendy homeless strategy is “Housing First.”
Get people the stability of housing. And then they have the safety, security and mental space to think about their mental health issues, physical health issues and addiction issues.
This makes a lot of sense.
But now we’re so invested in Housing First that there is nothing else discussed.
You are either in a house or…
There is no “or”. You just need to get in a house.
This causes endless issues.
In places like California there simply is not enough housing.
In places like Akron Ohio there is simply not enough housing.
And this is the problem. There is not enough housing anywhere.
Whether your city has 60,000 homeless or 600 homeless the issue is the same: there is not enough housing.
Housing First advocates will say that all resources need to be focused on getting more housing. If we spend money on anything other than housing we are simply wasting time and money.
This is theoretically interesting. But in the meantime there are people (real, live men, women and children) stranded on the streets. They are American born refugees.
The people who care about the homeless look at them in bewilderment. And the people who don’t care about them look at them in disgust.
But very few people look at them with a plan.
The Catholic Worker Movement has an innovative plan. They move the homeless into their houses. Anyone can start a Catholic Worker House. You can learn more about setting one up here.
L.A. county is offering up to $75,000 to put a “granny flat” in your backyard as long as you rent it to homeless people.
Seattle now has 6 city-sanctioned tent cities.
But then the ideas quickly fall off the cliff. We just start scratching our heads. And most cities in America aren’t thinking about this at all.
If 500,000 refugees flooded into America tomorrow we would be setting up FEMA trailers and the Red Cross would be on the spot immediately. But America’s 500,000 homeless people don’t get that kind of treatment. We focus on all the problems of helping the homeless instead.
You see stories like this one over and over again. Some good Samaritan builds a shelter for a homeless person. And then the city comes along and either tears it down or confiscates it because “it’s not safe.”
What is not safe is living on the street. 
You sleep with one eye open all the time. You are vulnerable from every angle. You are out there alone with thieves and murderers. And in the winter you are living exposed to brutal cold and wind.
Telling a homeless person that a wooden shelter is not safe would be like telling you your car is not safe and therefore we must take it away from you.
You can read about LA taking away shelters here: LA Officials Bring The Hammer Down On Tiny Houses For Homeless.
We know very well how many people in America feel about guns. Can you imagine the uprising if a city official came by and took all your guns because they weren’t safe?
But wooden shelters are taken away from homeless people every single day in America “because they aren’t safe.”
This strategy also means that they are therefore saying the street is safe.
That is an ignorance that defies even the most basic common sense.

• Report: 80 homeless people died on Portland streets in 2016 | Fox News
• One homeless person a week dies in Sacramento County, report shows | The Sacramento Bee
• Number of homeless people dying in Denver has increased “dramatically” according to local organization | FOX31 Denver

If you have a building inspector declare a shelter unsafe then a social worker should be able to follow immediately behind and declare the street unsafe. Those two people should then come to a conclusion of where this person can safely go.
But that’s not the way it works. There are merely laws about the safety of a structure. We have no laws about the safety of the street. So therefore they are sent to the street and everyone feels satisfied that they have done their job.
We cannot be satisfied with people living on the street because we don’t have the creativity, vision or even moral compass to say “this isn’t right. We can do better.”
We wouldn’t allow children to be sent out onto the street because we couldn’t find a foster home for them.
We wouldn’t allow stray dogs to be sent out onto the street because we are out of cages at the dog pound for them.
We wouldn’t allow immigrants to be sent out onto the street because we don’t have housing for them.
We wouldn’t allow dementia patients to be sent out onto the street because we don’t have a facility for them.
But yet somehow we find it completely acceptable to take our most poor, our most down and out, our most downtrodden and send them out onto the street.
How did we get here? How did we bend our moral judgement to find this acceptable because we are perplexed by the complication of this issue?
Human morality can easily be tricked.
Germany in World War II. Japanese internment camps in America in World War II.  The Native American Trail of Tears in the 1800s. Slavery.
We repeatedly allow bad things to happen to other humans and rationalize it as some sort of necessary evil.
Homelessness in America today is one of these rationalized falsehoods. There is no moral justification in any imaginable scenario that this could ever possibly be acceptable.
I guarantee you that people will look back at the 1980s to 202os as an era of great embarrassment for America.
This is not an impossible problem. It is 500,000 people out of 325 million people. I guarantee it’s not exactly 325 million people either. It’s probably give or take 500,000 people.
500,000 people showed up for the Women’s March on January 20 2018 in L.A. 
“From 1990 to 1995, an average of about 112,000 refugees arrived in the U.S. each year.”
So, in 5 years we managed to handle well over 500,000 refugees. Yet somehow we still have 500,000 homeless people. And don’t get me wrong, we can handle refugees AND we can handle our homeless.
We are just choosing NOT to handle our homeless.
This is not right.
Ethiopia is hosting 847,200 refugees. Ethiopia has a $72.37 billion gross domestic product. USA has $18.57 trillion gross domestic product.
If Ethiopia has somehow managed to host over 800,000 refugees, America should be able to somehow fix its 500,000 homeless person issue.
The people of America just have to decide we are better than this.
We can’t allow ourselves to fall into an intellectual trap that these people either get a house or they get on the street. That is a false premise. To believe this issue is binary, black or white, yes or no, is a logical fallacy. It’s a clever trick meant to fool people.
“Since we can’t get these people into houses we have no solution for them.” That’s simply incorrect and ridiculous.
This is not a black and white issue. We’ve only made it black and white. There is plenty of gray that can be explored.
We, as a society, have to tell our homeless advocates and our political leaders that we must look for creative alternatives for the homeless of America. We cannot stand by as our brothers and sisters rot on the street while the rest of us scratch our heads.