By Alan Z. Forman
Many dead, tonight it could be you ….
Homeless, homeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
…. We are homeless, we are homeless
— Singer Paul Simon, "Homeless" (from his 1986 album, “Graceland”)
Amid the bright lights and festivities of the Christmas holiday season in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and on the same day she declared "Frank Zappa Day" in memory of the Baltimore-born rock star and composer who died of prostate cancer in 1993, Mayor Sheila Dixon on Monday proclaimed December 21, 2009 “Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day in Baltimore.”
Speaking to a crowd of approximately 150 people gathered at the Inner Harbor amphitheater to call attention to the plight of the homeless and memorialize the city’s homeless dead, the mayor said, “We who have homes… have to give back more” to those less fortunate among the city’s population who don’t.
Despite what she termed “a $55 million deficit” this year in Baltimore, and “over $100 million [projected for] next year,” Dixon asserted: “We can stop homelessness,” then added: “We’re serious in Baltimore in our 10-year plan,” a reference to the decade-long blueprint she announced in January 2008 — shortly after being elected Baltimore’s first black female mayor in her own right — to address the root causes of homelessness and design a city where homelessness no longer will exist.
SOLVING THE HOMELESS PROBLEM
According to Dixon spokesperson Scott Peterson, who noted at the end of the evening ceremony that the mayor “speaks nationally to try to end homelessness,” solving the homeless problem in Baltimore is among Dixon’s “top signature issues.”
Added Diane Glauber, acting director of Human Services Baltimore, a division of the mayor’s office: “Mayor Dixon is seen as a leader [nationally] in this effort.”
Glauber said Human Services Baltimore has placed 250 families and children — who would otherwise be homeless — “into permanent housing in the last 18 months.”
The agency — which began under the auspices of the mayor’s office when Kurt L. Schmoke was mayor (between 1988 and 1999), then moved to the Department of Housing, followed by the Department of Health, and now back to the mayor’s office — is getting ready to relocate, in summer 2010, to a newly built location at Fallsway and Hillen Street, in the shadow of the Orleans Street viaduct and Jones Falls Expressway.
Although construction work is still underway, the building displays a massive sign on a side wall that reads: “Health Care for the Homeless Inc.: A Future without Homelessness starts here.” Established in 1985, HCHMD is nationally recognized as a model for the delivery of care to underserved populations.
The agency was just one of several organizations that planned and participated in Monday's ceremony as part of the National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day observance — which began in 1990 and occurs annually on or near Dec. 21, the first day of winter and the longest night of the year — to bring attention to what the National Coalition for the Homeless terms “the tragedy of homelessness and to remember our homeless friends who have paid the ultimate price for our nation's failure to end homelessness.”
Some 46 Baltimoreans without homes who died in 2009 were memorialized at the ceremony, each person’s name written on an individual “luminary” — a gallon milk jug with a candle placed inside — and read aloud as a remembrance.
THE MOURNER'S KADDISH
Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton, of Congregation Beit Tikvah, recited the Mourner’s Kaddish for the 46, the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead.
Other religious organizations participating in the interfaith event included Chesapeake Association, United Church of Christ; Immanuel United Church of Christ, Catonsville; First United Church of Christ; United Evangelical UCC; United Ministries; and Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church.
Local homeless organizations included Project PLASE (People Lacking Ample Shelter and Employment, which provides homeless men and women with the means to build a new foundation for their lives through transitional and permanent housing and supportive services); SHARP (Stop Homelessness and Reduce Poverty, a coalition of homeless service providers and advocates); and GEDCO (Govans Ecumenical Development Corp., a Baltimore-based social services provider and nonprofit developer of subsidized housing, which primarily serves low-income seniors and previously homeless men and women through affordable housing and support programs).
Participants in the ceremony also included individuals from B’More Housing For All, Institute of Notre Dame, Men of Earl’s Place, TransUnited, and Starbucks.
Also offering support were Larry Nunley, liaison for the Baltimore City Council, and J. Kirby Fowler Jr., president of Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, Inc.
According to Adam Schneider, HCHMD's community relations coordinator, “The emergency shelter [under construction on Fallsway] is very necessary [to the fight against homelessness] but doesn’t solve the problem” by itself.
Baltimore must also address “the need for permanent housing to end homelessness,” he said.
Schneider told Investigative Voice that he sees “a paradigm shift in the city [in dealing with the homeless situation], in ways we can address the problem.”
Asked if he thought Mayor Dixon’s 10-year plan can effectively end homelessness in Baltimore, Schneider said: “I think we can make homelessness rare and brief.”
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