Anchorage -Tent city proposed to combat homeless problem

Landless peasants

Anchorage -Tent city proposed to combat homeless problem
http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?s=10758392

I do not consider myself to be homeless. My gertees are fully functional, year-round, livable dwellings that elevate my quality of life. What I am is landless. It's not shelter I require; I own my home, I built it myself, I can dismantle it anytime I choose and take it anywhere I go. Here's the glitch: I do need the land to erect my home upon.

Homelessness is another one of those words that slipped into the American lingo without anyone really questioning its meaning, or its intent. After reading the comments about this KTUU Anchorage story at the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, I realized many of our citizens exemplify the ultimate communitarian standards for non rational thinking. False feelings of superiority are the end result of years of church/media tutorials filled with communitarian propaganda and lies.

As more Americans lose their homes and LAND to urban revitalization, community development, Local Agenda 21 visions and countless other plans to steal American resources, our people will be forced to reconsider this vague, new communitarian word that allows the governing bodies to determine the fate of the people so designated.

One of first communitarian programs I discovered in Seattle in 1999 was Peter Steinbrueks' Transient Tracking Program. This was a plan to chip all the homeless people using Seattle services. All renters in the Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan were defined as "transients with a negative impact on the neighborhood." As we can see, communitarian terminology changes meanings depending on the urgent needs of the communitarian planners and enforcers.

Here's a few definitions used by a few western countries. I wonder what the definition of homelessness is in Mongolia. (Here's the UN's take on Mongolian homeless children.) I see yurts mixed with modern buildings in pictures of Mongolia and they have yurt suburbs around Ulan Baatar. Even under communist rule the yurt lifestyle remained the BASIS of Mongolian culture. It is their universe, literally their place in the clouds. Home is a spiritual matter to them, and it has become that to us as well. Living in my gertee, I feel I am free for the first time in my life as a "free" American.

http://www.homeless.org.au/glossary.htm
Glossary -- Define Homenessness

Social Worker and Director of Rebeccas Community, Mr. Dominic Mapstone:

"Homelessness is an inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community."

USA

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act, Section 725, defines "homeless children and youths" as follows:

Homeless Children and Youths

(A) means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence (within the meaning of section 103(a)(1)); and

(B) includes—

children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement;

(ii) children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings (within the meaning of section 103(a)(2)(C));

(iii) children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

(iv) migratory children (as such term is defined in section 1309 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described in clauses through (iii).

Australia

Supported Accommodation Assistance Program Act 1994

Homeless

A person is homeless if, and only if, he or she has inadequate access to safe and secure housing.

Ireland - Dublin

A legal definition of the Homeless is contained in Section 2 of the 1988 Housing Act.

Homeless

A person is defined as homeless if:

(a) there is no accommodation available for him/her, together with any other person who normally resides with him/her or who might reasonably expect to reside with him/her, which he/she can reasonably occupy or remain in occupation of or,

(b) He/she is living in a Hospital, county home, night shelter or such institution and is so living because he/she has no accommodation and he/she is unable to provide accommodation from his/her own resources.

Sweeden - Stockholm

Homeless Person

One who does not have his/her own dwelling or is not living in someone else's home permanently and must resort to living in temporary placements

Person who lives on the streets

Person living in an institution or shelter and who does not have a place in which to reside at point of discharge

United Kingdom - London

A statutory definition included in Section 175, 1966 House Act this section defines people being homeless if they:

Homeless Person

Have no accommodation in the UK / elsewhere

Cannot secure entry to accommodation

Are threatened with homelessness within the next 28 days

Have no accommodation which is reasonable for them to occupy

Here's HUD's definition:

The United States Code contains the official federal definition of homeless. In Title 42, Chapter 119, Subchapter I, homeless is defined as:

§11302. General definition of homeless individual
(a) In general
For purposes of this chapter, the term “homeless” or “homeless individual or homeless person” includes—

1. an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and

2. an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is —

1. a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);

2. an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

3. a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

(b) Income eligibility

1.
In general
A homeless individual shall be eligible for assistance under any program provided by this chapter, only if the individual complies with the income eligibility requirements otherwise applicable to such program.

2.
Exception
Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a homeless individual shall be eligible for assistance under title I of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 [29 U.S.C. 2801 et seq.].

(c) Exclusion

For purposes of this chapter, the term “homeless” or “homeless individual” does not include any individual imprisoned or otherwise detained pursuant to an Act of the Congress or a State law.