“On the Trail of the Elusive Portypot” or “In Search of the Elusive Portypot”, written and copyrighted 26 July 2008

      

“On The Trail Of The Elusive Portypot” Poem by Michael V. Schwing written Saturday 26 July 2008, copyright 2008 While walking beside the Canal down a brick trail, Over the bridge on my two feet I sail, Past the NCAA building as big as a whale, What do I see that will end my travail? I see the Portypots, a family group of three, The elusive Portypot finally found by me! With a fourth standing alone under a tree, The elusive Portypot, I finally found thee! And why, do you ask, does seeing a Portypot cause glee? Why, because in the Mile Square only two bathrooms there be. Only two that are open 24 hours at White Castle and Steak-n-Shake you see, Only one can be accessed without the key. The one at White Castle needs a manager’s okay. That same manager who looks at you like, “Hey!” “Why are you here?  What would you like, please say.” “Please order something now or be on your way.” The other at Steak-n-Shake, that’s where I go, Because there they accept without a show, My need to use the bathroom they understand and know, I do my business, then order a banana shake I sip slow. But sometimes I have no money, you know. But they don’t toss me out into the cold snow, Or into the street that’s as hot as a demon foe. The waiter, who kindly greets me, understands. It is so! So down by the canal, by the Indianapolis Tennis Center , My elusive Portypot I think I shall enter, I love to “office” because I leave there a little lighter, Then I leave the elusive Portypot feeling “Oh so much better!”   NOTE: this poem is read by me on Youtube with various pictures of the places mentioned. Find by searching word “portypot”.

The Fatal Flaws in the belief “We feel by feeding, giving blankets we are enabling people to stay in the street” -By Michael Schwing, written Monday, November 12, 2012

This is Michael Schwing. Most of you know me as a member of the CHIP Homeless Advocacy Council working with the rest of you (all of you being voices FOR the homeless) as almost the sole voice OF the homeless in the Blueprint 2 work meetings, which I enjoy attending.

 

Just  as Andrea DeMink felt the need today to post the truth about flu shots on Facebook, so I feel the need to address from all sides the concept that I have yet run into again today:

that if we feed the homeless or give them a blanket we are enabling them to remain homeless and they will not come in to access services (read: come into our business and access the services we provide so we can keep getting our grant money to continue providing those services needed or not).

As most of this will just fly past or over the heads of  some of our MSW (Masters of Social Work) case managers or they will be so stuck in their in-the-box-thinking that the offering of explanations and opinions not held by them by someone who is not an MSW will serve no purpose. If you are in that category you can stop reading now. If you are in any other category, please read on till you get annoyed or find one word or comment to harp on then quit reading or harp away. Otherwise if you really want to know some answers read on.

(Remember: Thinking outside the box can be useful, but I am not saying discard that in the box which works. Some issues need another approach; some people need a different approach.)

 

First, homelessness is NOT EASY BY ANY MEANS. So NOTHING you or anyone else does can make it easier. This fallacious comment (“that we are making homelessness easy”, or “we don’t want to make homelessness easy”) has been made in my presence 100% of the time by persons who are not now nor ever have been homeless and probably believe they never could be. It has been said to me by MSW’s, case managers, service providers and the average person on the street.

 

Second, feeding the homeless is enabling them. It is ENABLING THEM TO SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO ACCESS YOUR SERVICES. If they die in the street, they cannot be helped, but then they would not need to be. It may also be enabling them to live long enough to wait till you actually offer the service they need, or till they find the service provider they need. (Remember: One size does not fit all.)

 

Third, until you have shelters or missions with sufficient space  that allow any and every homeless person to come in, not just those who fall under the business mission statement, not just persons with drug dependencies, or victims of domestic abuse and their children, WHERE IS IT YOU EXPECT ME TO COME IN TO? Do you know for instance, the Wheeler building on Delaware St. has three floors and if one floor had 125 beds on it, then the other two floors could also have 125 beds on each therefore housing 250 more men as well as the 175 beds on the one floor of the Lighthouse. The available beds (175 in the entire city if not in a program) are usually full. How is sleeping on a mat in a mission dayroom any different from what I am doing already: sleeping on a cardboard in a park shelter? Well there may be a temperature difference of forty degrees, but at least I CAN SLEEP outside and am not subjected to abuse by the other inmates of the mission for snoring nor treated like an idiot by the staff. I went in the other night for overflow, forgetting to check first to see if it was a weather night (it has been over 3 years since I needed a weather night bed), and the person I spoke to went out of his way to make me feel like an idiot–called the phone number of the weather night line, playing it with a look of satisfaction on his face. Personally speaking, I hope I do freeze to death outside for then I would die happy and this crap would be over. But as the best thing that could ever happen to me while homeless is to die, I know that will not happen. Besides, it is not a good day to die as I am not done using my talents to make the powers that be (read: THE SYSTEM) uncomfortable enough to become more effective and efficient.

 

Fourth, in my head I always have to ask, “What services?” If you are not going to get me into housing you have no services I need. I can wash my clothes or take a shower (or clean up) any of several places including family and friend’s houses, church, IUPUI Science Bldg (for washing clothes), and family bathrooms everywhere. Donuts, milk and coffee? And now there is no reason not to understand why so many homeless are becoming diabetic–sweet treats are the primary and sometimes only thing we are fed. Water? I know most homeless are too lazy to carry around a 20 ounce pop bottle and fill it with tap water as I do. So they need you to donate dozens of cases of water monthly to survive.

(Remember: You need to find out what services are needed and then provide them, bottom to top not top to bottom. If you nonprofits operated in the real world in this same manner you would be bankrupt in the year, or have no customers, or would have driven them off.) Now, I do access IU doctors and now Midtown again (required by HIP case management which I am trying to get into).

 

Fifth, let us cover feedings. Have any of you calculated how many blocks it is to get to three feedings a day? I have, for I no longer have the physical means to walk the 60 blocks a day to get to those feedings. Sixty blocks you ask: Military Park to Central Library–10 blocks. Central Library to what is the former Damien Center but is properly called Cathedral Kitchen–5 blocks there, 5 blocks back. Central Library to Wheeler-Lighthouse–12 1/2 blocks there, 12 1/2 blocks back (although walking on a diagonal as much as possible lessens this). Do this a second time for dinner–25 blocks round-trip again. And you wonder why I would rather make a ten block round trip and buy food or get it from a dumpster and skip most feedings. And as for food. We are tired of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, and crackers, and sweet treats whose expiration dates are months if not years ago. The homeless are not a living garbage disposal for expired food. We want to and NEED to eat the same quality food those providing food for us would serve their families. So yes, you are NOT enabling us to stay in the street by giving us some pizza or chili, or any other real meal–that one meal did not keep us from accessing services, but allowed us to survive another night and showed us you really care about us to the point that now you have our attention. It is just like at Wheeler Mission Ministries. They feed us a meal first. And give us a place to sleep. In between those two acts of taking care of our basic needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy), they show us they care about us and preach the Word to us and talk to us before shower time, and over time that will reach most people. Then when they have our attention the case manager asks us what do we need, what is our plan out of homelessness, if we even have a plan, and how can they help us achieve that plan. THAT IS THE GOAL OF ALL OUTREACH–GET PEOPLE CONNECTED TO THE SERVICES THEY NEED TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT THEY WANT/NEED. If you are in outreach for any other purpose than to help someone get out of the street, then get out of the outreach now. We will figure out your reason is not in line with our needs and you will fail.  Most of us are not interested in helping other people feel good about themselves, that they did something for the homeless, such as by accepting a PBJ sandwich and water.

 

Sixth, it seems to me that this idea that if you refuse to provide people their needs they will come running in to you to get what they need. There are some people who will do that. They are the ones living off the system and will do whatever you say to get what they want so they do not have to do anything. Along with this group are those who feel entitled to be supplied by you with everything they want without personally having to DO anything but hold out their hand for you to fill. But these are only two groups among the homeless.

I think this idea is a lot like bad parenting. Most of us will only access the people/programs who show they care and will listen to what we want or need. Outreach shows they care by feeding us (just give me another can of Vienna sausage–you better duck fast when I throw it upside your head to open the crappy things, or provide me some hot sauce or salad dressing to cover their taste. Same goes with peanut-butter sandwiches, and peanut-butter crackers). I know I have just hurt some feelings or annoyed greatly some of you–especially churches feeding, or worse, you are thinking, and I have been told this when turning down food I did not like, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” I am not begging from you. I do not need your food or water. There are many others, though, not as resourceful as me and who do not have any support system as I do who absolutely NEED the food and they will be nicer about the same old things being served. There are feedings I will never go back to because I feel they feed to make themselves feel good or they do not feed anything worth eating. It is all about survival, and as such, each person does what he or she thinks is best to survive. We need feedings and soup kitchens as the elders call them. But we also need outreach persons and organizations to get the word out about services and help us connect to services. There are still some people, especially ones new to homelessness, who do not know what is available or do not know how to access it. If this philosophy REALLY WORKED, then all the agencies should cut off the food stamps of EVERYONE in the country because you are enabling them to survive without working. But then you very same case managers who think my food should be cut off so I will come in to get services from you would harp about all the unwed mothers and how they and their bastard children need to eat and it would be inhumane to risk them starving to death because they are going through troublesome times not of their own doing. No, I am not child hateful or advocating this be done. I am using an example of one kind of feeding you support and saying IT IS THE SAME THING as feeding the homeless. Refusing to feed me or give me clothes or a blanket WILL NEVER MAKE ME COME IN FOR SERVICES. And refusing to help me with the basic needs every human is entitled to have means I WILL NEVER,  REPEAT,  NEVER,  COME IN FOR SERVICES FROM YOUR ORGANIZATION. You do not want to help or serve me except by your terms, you are now the enemy. And as a survivalist what will I then do? I will badmouth your organization for lack of caring and competence and I will not stop being inimical till your organization is as DEAD as you obviously want me to be. Tough words? Extreme words? Exactly. If that is what I need to get through to people then that is what I will use.

 

Seventh, and maybe most importantly, we will be homeless whether you outreach to us or not, whether you provide the supplies of food, clothes, and other things needed for survival, whether you care or not, and whether you like it or not. And in SURVIVING we will each do the best we can. If I eat a meal at a church, or eat at the Pourhouse feedings, I do not feel I have been enabled. In fact some feedings you support, some you do not. Support all feedings. They are necessary and important. If our basic needs cannot be met most of us would rather die in the street than come in and kiss certain service provider body parts. ENABLING US, YES. IS THIS KEEPING US OUT IN THE STREET? NO. (Except for that small group that will remain homeless for various personal reasons no matter what you do.) .

 

Last, as for me personally, since I have family, lodge, and church commitments, have hobbies, have service businesses which I can do even while homeless (been self-employed on a small scale for 25 years), have a church family and have never left society (although I do fit the label “chronically homeless”), I may seem to be too comfortable and not want to leave the street. But I do want to leave the street and live in my own place again. The help I need is getting sufficient gainful employment and how to get employed these days when almost all jobs I got hired at were because I knew the manager who offered me a job. HIP has a game-plan for me in this regard and today Horizon House made a good suggestion that may prove helpful to me–going through Opportunity Knocks again. Genealogy is my drug along with playing the online games Runescape and Mahjongg. While I would be doing these things daily anyway, if I were employed I would be working not online 12 hours a day. And in taking care of myself I would be better able to help someone else. I will always be an advocate and also outreach in my own small way, not by going to camps or other places, but by telling those whom I see in the course of my day about the services that are available to aid one out of homelessness, poverty, hunger, and unemployment. I cannot walk past someone I can help and not try. From working with all of you on the Blueprint 2, I know you understand and agree for that is why you are in the various service businesses you are in. I want to encourage the co-operation between us all as together we can accomplish more. But I also want to encourage knowledge. I did not know some of your agencies actually existed, or in some cases had heard of them but did not know what you do, or the persons you help. By working beside all of you and making my small contributions, I have gained much knowledge, of who is out there, what is effective, organizations I never knew existed that I can add to the lists of those I know to recommend persons to, best procedures and the like that make my personal “outreach” more effective, which makes me a happier person, for I love to help people. I surround myself with people who fill the role of brother, sister (I am an only child of parents who are deceased), friend. Those amongst that group of “family” who are homeless share food and resources so we as a group are better off than we would be trying to make it individually. That is the kind of person I am housed/unhoused, employed/unemployed, etc. I have family, be they legally related or not, blood or not. I will survive and this is just for a time. But I need help sometimes to change my situation and asking for that help is difficult as I should be the Helper, not the one helped

 

If you have read this far, Thank you for your time and caring. I do not want outreach to stop nor feedings to stop nor greatly annoy our underpaid over-worked case-managers. I want them to understand several sides of this “enabling” issue from those of us whom you think are being “enabled” by the things we are given to survive.

 

Sincerely,

 

Michael V. Schwing

“The Food Chain”, a humorous short story written and copyright by Michael V. Schwing 18 May 2010

“The Food Chain” A supposed to be funny fantasy short story  by KE Tyrrannis I Saurranno (a.k.a. Michael V. Schwing, c. 2010, written Wed. 18 May 2010)

While tending the garden the other day I found something looking like half an acorn shell. I thought it looked funny, but threw it away with the weeds pulled, when I had a sudden thought. So taking a spectrometer and other secret technical readings, it proved to be a rozikru:shan egg! “Great!” I thought. now we will have rozikru:shans running all over the place. A better thought would have been how a rozikru:shan egg got from the Shamu world of Beta Cepheus III, which is a Calashiri protected world, just as Terris (Earth) is a Malakh protected world. On these Galactic Council protected worlds, no alien life-form is allowed to go on it and no native life-form is allowed to be removed. The Malakh are still trying to clean up the mistake of letting the Branta–which the humans call “Canada Goose”–on the planet, but at least the horrible plague called the Branta is exterminated everywhere else. Don’t even bring up Enmeduranki (called “Enoch” by the Hebrews). The Malakh had to remove him from Terris because of all the knowledge he learned from them. But I digress.
So, to get rid of those mouse-sized, burrowing, shrill-buzzing, stinking rozikru:shans, I talked to my cousin Istvan. He is an exobiologist so I figured he would know what to do. And he did! (For a refreshing change of pace.) He said we had to get a skylothrax.  I asked what that was and how to get one. He said, “They are the only known animals to eat the rozikru:shans. They are also native to the Shamu world.”  He had a biologist friend who just happened to be raising some (illegally of course). So we got one which was supposed to be a male. “How can you tell?” you ask. Why the male has an ossipenis, of course! The skylothrax got rid of (read: ate) what we hoped were all the rozikru:shans.
Now the new problem. It wasn’t a male skylothrax; it was a female. Do you know what happens when you feed a female skylothrax?  Why, it reproduces repeatedly of course! Think tribbles. So now we needed something to get rid of the skylothrax.
Cousin Istvan, always helpful in a Homer Simpson kind of way, suggested getting a nargothrax, which, as it so happens, prefers to eat its cat-sized cousin skylothraxes! I didn’t even ask where to get one, I just somehow knew Istvan would find one and get it to my garden. And so he did. Now the next problem. How to get rid of a nargothrax, a beagle-dog-sized black-backed, orange-bellied, red crest down back, screaching lizard.  Apparently, it is the favored food of a tricerosaur, a large three-horned color-changing chameleon-like lizard.
Don’t ask! Yes, the tricerosaur was very helpful, until for some reason it ate every blue-colored flower in my garden. It then started eating the purple and red flowers, that is, until it threw up the next day. In the purple “vomit” was…..baby tricerosaurs! Apparently, my dim-witted exobiologist cousin Istvan did not know tricerosaurs hold their eggs internally and appear to “vomit” (read: give birth to) their young. Homer Simpson “duh” head  hit.
I had a thought.  I asked my cousin, “Where does this all end?” He replied, “With the bullemion (pronounced bool-lay-my-on).” He continues: “The bullemion eats the catawampus. The catawampus prefers to eat the lapparing. The lapparings’ only food is the turkapastakan, which of course eats the somestikan. The somestikan is the only known predator of the almogestosaur, which of course loves to eat its cousin the tricerosaur.” “So we’re like ten degrees up the food chain?” I asked. “Exactly.”
I couldn’t resist. “What kills bullemions?” “Cherushki hunters.” “And how are we going to get Cherushki hunters? I am not exactly on good terms with my distant cousin King Cherukhan X of Cherushki.” Cousin Istvan replied, “You could ask your distant cousin Emperor Shvaragdan V of Sharada to ask Cherukhan, after all they are cousins.” Amazed, I replied, “That’s the best idea you’ve had yet.” I enquired, “What gets rid of Cherushki hunters? Let me guess..uh…um…rozikru:shans no doubt?” “Exactly! They crawl inside a Cherushki, eat, vegetate, and reproduce, until their young eat their way out of the Cherushki, killing him or her. They do not parasitize humans,” replied my cousin.
Anyway, a Cherushki hunter later got rid of the tricerosaurs, capturing the mother and babies with tranquilizing darts. And I was greatly blessed when a bullemion ate my cousin Istvan.  The End.