First Lady Michelle Obama’s new project – ending homelessness for American veterans.

Our FLOTUS is an amazing woman, wife, and mother. She’s brilliant. She’s a fashion icon. She’s the role model we’ve been asking for. And yes, I’m a HUGE fan.

Now that she has us eating better and exercising more with LetsMove.gov, Mrs. Obama is shifting her attention to another societal ill – getting our homeless veterans off the streets and into the homes they deserve. These real-life heroes should never have to worry about having a roof over their heads.

“The image of even one of these heroes sleeping out in the cold, huddled up next to an overpass — that should horrify all of us,” Mrs. Obama said (1). “Because that’s not who we are. And the truth is, we know that there are simple steps that we can take — whether that’s in business or government or in our communities — to prevent and solve these kinds of problems.”

We’ve read the stories about Phoenix and Salt Lake City stepping up to help their respective homeless veteran populations. Los Angeles’ Mayor Eric Garcetti has signed on to participate in the Mayors Challenge to End Veterans Homelessness. (Side note: I am from Winston-Salem, NC. While we get more than our fair share of negative political attention these days, I am very proud to say that the first NC Mayor to sign up for this challenge was my very own, Mayor Allen Joines(2).) Click here to see if your Mayor has signed on.

The Department of Veteran Affairs reports there’s been a 24% reduction in homelessness among Veterans since 2010. That report was released in November of 2013, so presumably that number is even higher. Here’s hoping this Challenge crushes that percentage.

Footnote 1: LA Times

Footnote 2: Allen Joines helps the First Lady’s campaign for homeless veterans.

How Does A Homeless Man Spend $100?

Curious what a homeless person would do with $100, they gave him the money and then followed him to see what would happen. At first, his motives were misjudged and then what he did shocked and humbled everyone. The saying couldn't be more true, "Never judge a book by its cover.” What a beautiful moment of giving caught on tape.

Police take in homeless family after Salvation Army shelter turns them away

Unable to convince a Salvation Army shelter to take in a Tennessee family on a sub-freezing night because of the age of one of their children, responding police officers pooled their own money and provided the family with shelter and groceries, reports WMC.

Tim Lejeune, his wife and three children — a daughter, 16, and sons 15, and 5 — are homeless and currently living out of their car in Johnson City, parking overnight in Walmart parking lots. Facing a bitter cold night, with the temperature dropping to 18 degrees, Lejeune took his family to the Johnson City Salvation Army shelter after seeing the white flag flying indicating a cold night and shelter available.

Upon arriving at the shelter, the family was told they couldn’t stay because their son is fifteen, and current Salvation Army policy does not allow them to host boys between the ages of 12 to 16.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry, your son, y’all can’t stay here, because of his age,’” Lejeune said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

“They said he’s too old to stay on the women’s side, because of the women running around in their pajamas and they said he’s too young to stay on the men’s side in case some pervert wants to do ….. whatever,” Lejeune added.

The family met with Johnson City police officers who tried to persuade the Salvation Army to take the family in, but to no avail.

Unwilling to let the family sleep in their car that night, the officers pooled their own money, as well as money donated by 911 dispatchers, and took the family to the Johnson Inn. According to authorities, the clerk at the motel, seeing what the policemen were doing, comped the room for the family for the night. The police officers then took the money and bought the family dinner, groceries, leaving them with the leftover cash.

Johnson City Police Maj. Garry Younger said, “I’m very proud that we employ people with that fortitude that care about the citizens.”

Police identified the officers as AD McElroy, Justin Jenkins, Toma Sparks and Robert McCurry.

Salvation Army Captain Michael Cox said the organization has a longtime policy that prohibits boys ages 12 to 16 from staying at the shelter and says it has only been enforced one before.

“It was an unfortunate situation altogether, because we did not have the facilities to put that family in place,” Cox said of the situation. “We did offer further assistance and that was denied.”

Cox said the Salvation Army is now reviewing the policy.

The Lejeune family did return to the homeless shelter at a later date and has stayed there, but not due to a change in policy. The 15-year-old son, Dustin is currently staying at a mental health facility after having a breakdown, feeling he was responsible for the family’s plight.

The family is currently looking for schools for the children, work, and home where they can be reunited with their son.

Watch the video below from WMC:

WMC Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

20-Year-Old Georgian Disowned After 'Pray the Gay Away' Intervention Joins Board of Homeless LGBT Youth Org

Daniel Pierce, the 20-year-old Georgian whose video of his family's verbally and physically abusive "pray the gay away" intervention back in August went viral, has been named to the Board of Directors of Lost-n-Found Youth, GLAAD reports:

Lost-n-Found Youth is a non-profit organization providing temporary housing, job search assistance, counseling, and other services to homeless LGBT youth. Pierce is the first former client of Lost-n-Found Youth to join the organization's Board of Directors. His appointment is part of a larger effort to bring broad perspectives and skills to the organization's leadership.

GLAAD adds Pierce is using a portion of the nearly $100,000 he raised in the wake of the video's release to help Lost-n-Found build a new shelter for LGBT homeless youth that will reportedly triple the capacity of the organization's current shelter. 

Said Pierce:

"Lost-n-Found was there for support from the earliest moments and they stepped in before I ever got to the first critical 48 hours of homelessness," said Pierce. "Their quick response is proof that there is a safe place in Atlanta for youth like me to turn to for support. Even though my personal story was extreme, I hope my experiences can continue the dialogue about GLBTQ youth homelessness and get people off the street by engaging the community."

More info on Lost-n-Found can be found here.

Billboards That Double as Homeless Housing May Soon Pop Up in the U.S.

Whether they’re promoting the latest Hollywood film, causing controversy, or eating smog, billboards are a ubiquitous part of modern life. Earlier this summer, urban design enthusiasts from the Slovakia-based firm DesignDevelop generated international excitement when they unveiled Project Gregory, an architectural proposal that presented an innovative solution to housing for the homeless: turning the eyesore of roadside advertising into a place to live.

Matej Nedorolik, DesignDevelop’s business manager, was responsible for fielding inquiries about the project from all over the globe—from both journalists and investors. Nedorolik has taken on that task because Project Gregory’s creator has insisted on staying anonymous. Pseudonymously referred to as “Gregory” by Nedorolik, the inventor of the concept first came up with the idea as a student project.

“Gregory was walking down the street, and he saw this big billboard along the motorway,” Nedorolik says. “So he started to think about it in a way. How can it be used in other ways? How can it be useful for other people?”

As people around the world began expressing their support, Gregory and the project’s team decided to take it beyond the student-project level. They created sketch plans for a two-bedroom apartment, which would include a kitchen, an office, a bed, and a bathroom.

The floor plan takes advantage of a unique feature of Slovakian billboards. Instead of being flat, upright surfaces, roadside billboards in the European nation are triangular. The design enables drivers approaching from either direction to see an advertisement; it also leaves a V-shaped space in the center, which the Project Gregory team believes is perfect for housing.

Giving the homeless a place to live would provide them with the stability they need to rebuild their lives—a place where they can sleep, take a shower, and feel safe. It’s also been proved to save cities money. An 85-unit pilot project constructed in Charlotte, N.C., in 2013 saved that city $1.8 million. Because residents weren’t sleeping outside in the elements, there were 447 fewer visits to emergency rooms and 372 fewer days spent in hospitals.

Not all places are as forward-thinking in their approach. In June in London, an apartment building came under fire for installing spikes on the ground to prevent the homeless from sleeping on the sidewalk. Later that month lawmakers in wealthy Norway began debating whether to throw people who beg for money on the streets in jail.

“With this project, we would like to give them a chance to get back into a normal life, to start with a new job or start with a new family or so on,” says Nedorolik.

Anyone interested in bringing it to life in their own city is welcome to use the blueprints as they please, he says. “It’s an open-source project, so anyone who wants to participate [in] it is very welcome.” 

Although Project Gregory’s graphic mock-ups went viral this summer, the company initially had trouble finding serious financial backing. However, the effort’s leads are vetting investors to help fund the project—or at least to help them build a model and test out its feasibility.

“The plan for the future is, first, to make one model of the billboard where we can try all the technical abilities of the billboard house,” Nedorolik says.

Most People Ignored This Homeless Man, But Those Who Looked Closer Were In For A Surprise

Big Daws is better known for his Youtube prank videos, like eating junking food at a gym and pretending to know strangers. But this time he decided to do something different. He lives in Tempe, Arizona, and found an interesting way to bring awareness to the homeless population.

According to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, in 2012 there were 22,350 adults and 5,805 children registered as homeless. That was a 12 percent increase over the previous year. The Arizona Commission on Homelessness and Housing (ACHH) was established by Governor Janice Brewer and is a formal state plan designed to end veteran homelessness by 2015 and chronic homelessness by 2016.

The Forsaken: A Rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families

One late night at the end of her sophomore year of college, Jackie sat in her parked car and made a phone call that would forever change the course of her life. An attractive sorority girl with almond eyes and delicate dimples, she was the product of a charmed Boise, Idaho, upbringing: a father who worked in finance, a private­school education, a pool in the backyard, all the advantages that an upper-middle-class suburban childhood can provide – along with all the expectations attendant to that privilege.

"There was a standard to meet," Jackie says. "And I had met that standard my whole life. I was a straight-A student, the president of every club, I was in every sport. I remember my first day of college, my parents came with me to register for classes, and they sat down with my adviser and said, 'So, what's the best way to get her into law school?'"

Jackie just followed her parents' lead understanding implicitly that discipline and structure went hand in hand with her family's devout Catholic beliefs. She attended Mass three times a week, volunteered as an altar server and was the fourth generation of her family to attend her Catholic school; her grandfather had helped tile the cathedral. "My junior year of high school, my parents thought it was weird that I'd never had a boyfriend," she says, "so I knew I was supposed to get one. And I did. It was all just a rational thought process. None of it was emotionally involved."

After graduating, Jackie attended nearby University of Idaho, where she rushed a sorority at her parents' prompting. She chose a triple major of which they approved. "I remember walking out of the sorority house to go to Walmart or something, and I stopped at the door and thought to myself, 'Should I tell someone I'm leaving?'" she says. "It was the first time in my life where I could just go somewhere and be my own person."

Read more 

Three German students surprise a homeless guy

A German student was walking in the street and noticed a homeless man trying to get some money from the pedestrians.

Unfortunately his technique was not very successful so the student asked him to borrow his bucket.

At first, the homeless man was hesitant but he agreed to… it was the choice to make because what happens next will burst you into tears!

Old Public Buses Are Being Turned Into New Public Showers For A Really Great Reason

Taking upcycling to a whole new and very cool humanitarian level, Lava Mae is transforming old city buses into something many people desperately need. As the founder says toward the end, "Lava Mae is not about ending homelessness. What we are about is providing hygiene, because we believe that hygiene brings dignity and dignity opens up opportunity."

Happy but Homeless

$20 Homeless Backpack Care Kit

Random Act of Awesomeness!

Abandoned and alone in L.A.

L.A. is the nation’s number one destination for homeless and abandoned youth. Of the thousands who sleep on the streets here, a whopping 40% are LGBT boys and girls. And only one organization in Los Angeles is dedicated to serving them: the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. 

We offer much more than life-sustaining support like food, clothing, medical care and a warm bed; we offer young people the help they need to get off the streets and make it on their own, including counseling, GED preparation, job placement assistance and mentoring. 

No organization does more for LGBT youth … and sadly, the need has never been greater.

Will you please make a generous donation today? 

Text YOUTH to 80888 to make an instant $10 gift!

If this doesn't make you smile you're dead

Over One Quarter Of San Francisco's Homeless Identify As LGBT

For the first time ever, the San Francisco Human Services Agency surveyed a sample of the city's homeless population about their sexual orientation and the results are startling. Of the 1,000 surveyed, 29 percent said they were gay, bisexual or transgender, which is about twice as high as the percentage of the residents in the city overall. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The numbers suggest that more effort may need to go toward providing special services - such as beds set aside for LGBT people in shelters or social workers with special training in LGBT issues - to get gay people off the street and into temporary, and eventually permanent, housing, homeless advocates said.

"It's great to finally have these numbers. What we get from this is that homelessness is a queer issue," said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. "And when we look at our system, it's not particularly gay-friendly."

She's talked to gay and lesbian people who experienced homophobia in homeless shelters, and she said that transgender people staying in shelters experience abuse at "three times the rate" of straight people.

Friedenbach noted that the city is hoping to provide 24 new shelter beds set aside for LGBT people this year.

Powerful question!