Violence against the Homeless still a factor of life

St. Petersburg Police cutting up homeless tents

Recent studies have shown that there is a drastic rise of violent crimes where the homeless are the target victims. Some of these studies have correlated the volume of violent crime with the amount of civil-rights violations city officials are committing -- in the public view, and in the way of illegal laws, such as the Santee Lodging Law.

Someone Called?... you're kidding.

 Linda called us today using the GrandCentral button at the top-right of the page. It was nice to hear from her, and nice to find the button really works.

The GrandCentral service has been more than useful for my travels. When I'm inside a hotel or room, I can have all the calls transfered to that phone, or set them to go straight to voice-mail. Or to my cell-phone the rest of the time.

When you use the button, you put in your phone number, then the GrandCentral service will call your phone, and connect you to my phone. This way, the phone call is effectivly free (unless your cell-service charges you for in-coming calls as well... which many do).

The GrandCentral Service also allows different settings for each phone number (and the web button calls seperate as well), so that I can set the web button to go to voice-mail, with its own message. My first thought was to use the web button as a way of Voice Posting messages and information, and also allowing visitors to the Eddie Cat Project page to post Voice Comments.

The GrandCentral Web Button defaults to keeping your phone number private; if you want me to call you back, then uncheck the privacy check-box, or be sure to put your phone number or other contact information in your voice message.

Google Health

Google has opened up yet another new service, which allows clients to keep all of their medical records and information in one area, on line, and also the ability to share this information with specific people (doctors, family, pharmacy etc). I have yet to delve very far into the area now called Google Health, but I plan on getting in there and seeing all it has to offer. This may be another good tool for the homeless and those having to change careers, jobs, and geographic locations several times in a year in order to keep above water in the budget areas of life.

New Eddie Cat Project Web Site

Since I've decided to get just a bit more formal with my efforts, I'm moving the Eddie Cat Project blog to a new server. So to see new posts and information on this Homeless Project go to www.eddiecat.org.

The Lawless Christian writings (or whatever we might want to call that particular distraction) is going to have it's own blog as well.
Nothing fancy with this one, just a WordPress Blog.

I'm going to return to posting personal logs on MySpace and Live Journal.

Truth is that I've have found Blogger to be rather difficult to work with, lacking in features common on most blogging web sites, and very limited in its exposure. (Even wrote a Freelance Blogging Post about this). While I'm not out to become famous, I would at the very least like to be found if someone is looking for me, or the topics I find important.

Of course all of my Freelancer Articles and Classes will still be on the main web site.

The catalyst for the big move however was the Eddie Cat Project becoming a real effort, with actual goals. In order to provide the information I would like to, and to achieve some of the other goals, I needed more than a blog -- I needed a real web site. So since most of this blog was for the Homeless information -- might as well move everything out.

Hope to see you over there!

Fifteen Minutes

Have you ever met some one for fifteen minutes (on a train or a bus), and found yourself wishing you could stay with them for the rest of the day? -- but you couldn't. Not for some trivial work-related matter or some other silly reason, but for something important. Something you promised...

That happened to me today, and I had to snap my mouth shut because it was on the verge of a lunch invitation which was probably going to be accepted. Life is full of messed up conflicts; full of moments that appear, and then pass on by. Part of us stays on though, doesn't it? I can feel that part of me is still back there, and I suspect that part of me is having a great deal more fun than the rest of me is right now.

Working Wednesday (...yes I know it is Tuesday)

Caught a cold, or some minor flu, over the weekend. This is a challenge for the homeless, let me tell you. I finally broke down and got a room at the hotel, and have been here for the last two days. While I am feeling much better today, I'm going to continue to rest up.

I did complete an article on Freelance SEO writing yesterday (with some minor edits this morning), posted several bids on Guru.com, and some other Freelance Work sites; but other than these fairly simple tasks, I've done little this morning.

It is now about noon, Eddie Cat is sleeping away, as he is apt to do during daylight hours; and I'm attempting to look like I'm still functioning as a normal human being.

Eddie the Cat Moving Fields

Something I'm asked frequently is 'How did you train Eddie Cat to live on the leash?', and first off the answer is 'you don't train cats'.

This may sound like a cheap way out of the conversation, but it is true, training cats is nothing like training dogs. With cats, especially Eddie Cat, it is always a matter of enhancing habits and desires the cat already wishes to do, and guiding these tendencies to the desired behavior.

The cart training is a perfect example. Eddie Cat already enjoyed the cart the day we purchased the first one. But keeping him cooperative with the cart came by always feeding him inside the cart. I mixed up his dinner and said to him "Cart" until he jumped into the cart, and then I gave him his dinner.

I'll try to write more on this topic soon, because, as I said, I get asked about it all the time.

Eddie the Cat is not the happiest of cats this morning. It seems that he has cleared out all gophers in the CAP Little League Field on Mission Gorge Road, so we are moving to the Major Field tonight, so he can have a decent hunt. He staid awake all night looking for gophers (or anything really). The last two nights we were in hotel, and Eddie Cat got a little stir crazy during the second night. After months of night-time hunting, I suppose it is difficult to amuse yourself with Late Night movies. Needless to say he was very excited to arrive at the hunting fields last night (didn't even wait until I stopped the Cart before jumping out to start his prowl).

I picked up some Blue paint to take care of some of the graffiti and a couple of tarps to replace the ones which are weather torn at the Cap Field. Normally I simply pick up some of the trash, but I've been getting more ambitious of late (not too ambitious obviously, its not like I'm going to do 'real' work, like mow the laws or something radical like that). Taking care of the graffiti seems to be easy enough.

The EddieCat.org cards are in, picked those up today, and will probably be passing them out soon. I think they turned out fairly good, and I've been wanting them for some time. There is something about Eddie Cat that simply raises questions in peoples minds, and being able to easily refer those who are honestly curious to this blog, is a good thing. I would like to hear comments and suggestions from as many sources as I can entice.

We are still looking for an apartment. I've made several phone calls, but haven't been getting any call backs. Terron is doing what he can, but right at this moment we've hit something of a stone wall. Hammers (of all sizes) are available however.

I am continuously surprised by the level of problems facing the homeless these days. While I did grow up on the streets, I don't remember it being like this back then. I'm perfectly capable of giving two months rent in advance plus a deposit, and can't find a place to let me move in... while, as I've suggested, I know several ways around this particular problem, I doubt many homeless coming off the street have the resources or even the right questions to ask. I'm not overly intelligent, but lets face it, getting sober and getting steady work, while surviving on low quality food and lack of sleep (because cops keep waking you up so you are sleep depraved), takes a lot out of anyone, and I'm not dealing with these particular obstructions.

I've been digging further into the HUD funding Santee has been getting over the years, and quite frankly, getting rather pissed off. The more I find out, the more I don't want to know. I'm teetering on the knife-edge of continuing my original goal set, or expanding the targets much further. But you will learn enough about that here soon enough.

Santee Little League Fields - Eddie the Cat Hunting Ground

The Cap Field is cleared of Gophers, so Eddie Cat is moving to the fresh hunting grounds of the Major Field

Google Give Homeless Phone Numbers and Voice Mail

Through the Project Homeless Connect group in San Francisco, Google is sponsoring a mass sign up on its GrandCentral Service for the Homeless. GrandCentral is a new service purchased by Google, which gives a phone number to individuals, and voice mail, which can be accessed in a number of ways; in with Internet Phones such as Gizmo, or Skype, or through a land line phone, can even provide free phone calls.

This connection of the Homeless with basic communication needs, which do not have the worry of expiration or heavy fees (the GrandCentral service is free) offers a way to acquire employment and keep in touch with relatives. Users of the GrandCentral Service can customize voice mail messages to every phone number in their account book, and easily change the messages, so relatives and friends can get updates without having to be on the phone or available at the time.

The GrandCentral Service offers a number of other tools for communication, such as the Call Me button on the Walking With Eddie Cat blog, which gives direct connection to Eddie Cat and Glenn for free, no matter where you are, or where we are. Your number stays private and you can use all the normal GrandCentral
screening, blocking, forwarding, and other features that put you in
control. The WebCall button takes care of connecting the call to you
after getting the caller's number. Try it! Doesn't cost anything and we would certainly like to hear from you.

These CallMe Buttons are very easy to install on MySpace, Live Journal and several other Social web sites.

Pavlov's Cats (Eddie Izzard)

Last Night's Mayor Gopher Hunt

 

Eddie Cat is cleaning up the ball field from the Mayor Gophers, so I guess I better get going with my hunts as well.

Hate Crimes Against Homeless Rise in 2007

A rise in attacks against homeless people in 2007 has more states considering harsher penalties in hate crime laws for attacking a homeless person.

Legislation is pending in Ohio and Massachusetts and Alaska. In Alaska, the bill passed the Senate and House and awaits Gov. Sarah Palin's signature.

Attacks against homeless people increased from 142 attacks in 2006 to 160 attacks in 2007, says a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

Twenty-eight of those attacks were murders, up from 20 murders in 2006. The report was based on media reports and other data collected by advocates for the homeless, the coalition said.

"This is about punishing people who take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society," says Ohio State Rep. Mike Foley, who introduced the state's bill. "There is too much of it going on."