The Ambler
The Ambler has entertainments, stories, thoughts, explanations, and adventures to read, watch, and listen to. It comes to you from Chatham-Kent.
I hope they please you.
Welcome to The Ambler.
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Clair Culliford
In This Edition
1. How We Can Help Homeless People—A Proposal By Clair Culliford
2. A Short Happy Video—Schoolchildren Raising Money To Buy Adaptive Playground Equipment For Their Disabled Classmates
3. The Runaway—A Poem By Robert Frost
4. Clair's Jottings #1: Kerfluffle
5. Her Room—A Painting By Andrew Wyeth
6. Leave A Comment Or Read Other's Comments
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How We Can Help Homeless People—A Proposal By Clair Culliford
How We Can Help Homeless People is online for your approval. Please feel free to email me with your comments, suggestions, and criticisms.
Two sections, F. Questionnaire and G. How People Can Help Handbook, are still to be finished. If you sign up for the At The Veranda Newsletter, you'll be infprmed when they are completed.
Thank you.
A. The Purpose Of How We Can Help Homeless People
B. Three Ways To Directly Help Homeless People
C. What Is Most Needed To Help Homeless People
F. Suggestions To Improve Life In Encampments
H. How People Can Help Handbook
I. Finally
A. The Purpose Of How We Can Help Homeless People
The purpose of HWCHHP is to improve the lives of the homeless and to ameliorate the worst problems suffered by residents, businesses, shoppers, and visitors that are caused by homelessness.
Though social workers, other government employees (whether federal, provincial, or municipal), and charity volunteers try their best, they haven't sufficient resources to help the rising numbers of homeless people.
The proposal has suggestions for how the rest of us can help.
It begins with three ways we can directly help, then goes on with ideas to make that helping effective, friendly, and safe.
B. Three Ways To Directly Help Homeless People
b.1. Be A Mentor
To mentor is to support, advise, and guide.
• As a mentor, you will attempt to help one homeless person, or perhaps a family, using your understanding and personal experience.
• Two or three people can mentor together, to feel safer and to do a better job of helping.
• You will first find out what the homeless person or family needs and wants and then help them find the available means of assistance.
• It's up to you to decide how much time and effort you want to give and to communicate this clearly to your mentee(s).
• The How People Can Help Handbook has links to where to find food, medical help, transportation, and so on. It also has suggestions for mentors, such as how to avoid being taken advantage of, how and when to stop, and how to find who is trustworthy.
• You may have to try two or three times to find the right person or family to mentor.
• You can stop mentoring any time you wish. Thanks for your help.
b.2. Be A Volunteer (Either Official Or Unofficial)
Official
• Join a helping organization that needs volunteers. The organization will instruct you on how to help, how to be safe, and so on.
• See the How People Can Help Handbook for a list of organizations.
Unofficial
• People can make their own volunteer groups, perhaps to help in one small area. There's no need for a formal organization. Just meet in person once and then email amongst yourselves to discuss how to coordinate assistance—or however you wish to arrange things.
• You can stop volunteering whenever you like. Thanks for helping.
• The How People Can Help Handbook has more ideas. COMING SOON LINK NEWSLETTER WILL TELL UOU EHEM OR SIGB UP JUST FOW HWCHHP UPDAYES AUTO CONTACT FORM
b.3. Be A Helper
• Occasionally, when you see a homeless person, say hello, buy them a coffee, perhaps chat a bit... Do this only if you feel safe. If you feel unsafe, do this when you're with someone.
• There's more in the "How People Can Help Handbook".
• You can stop helping at any time. Thanks for all you've done.
C. What Is Most Needed To Help Homeless People
What is missing from the multitudinous attempts to help homeless people, I think, is wisdom. There is desire to help, there is money (though not enough, nor will there ever be), there is training, there is hope, but unless concerned people are willing to look at the whole darn mess of homelessness wisely, not much will improve beyond what is happening now.
By Wisdom, I Mean Three Things
1. Always seriously consider an opinion, political viewpoint, or diatribe about homelessness that you disagree with, if only for two minutes. Doing this will increase the possibility that a helpful bit of that opinion, etc., will be put to good use.
Of course, there will always be one person in every conversation about homelessness (or about anything else) that two minutes of listening to is way too long. Do not be that person.
2. If you want the best possible results for homeless people, you should, for a short time, seriously consider what it would be like if your world came crashing down and you became homeless-or seriously ill, or an invalid. We are all sympathetic, but doing this may help focus that sympathy.
3. Keep in mind that even your opinions, etc. may be wrong sometimes, shocking as that may be.
D. Could An Appeal To Help Be Sent To These Individuals & Organisations? Could They Be Asked To Forward HWCHHP To Those That They Think Might Be Interested In Helping?
• doctors & nurses
• elected officials including MPs, MPPs, Mayor, and Councillors
• employees of banks, trust companies, etc.
• employees of businesses associations: BIAs, Chamber of Commerce...
• employees of federal, provincial, municipal governments
• employees of schools & colleges
• members of faith groups
• members of service groups, sports groups, arts groups, etc.
• members of unions
• members of youth groups: Scouts, Guides, Cadets, etc.
• people on Reserves
• people who are homeless, addicted, or mentally
• members of Chatham-Kent Police Service and Chatham-Kent Fire & Rescue
I'm sure there are more.
E. Homeless Groups
Groups will attempt to improve the lives of homeless people, will try to make them feel more comfortable in the place where they live, and will encourage non-homeless people to see the homeless in a more positive light and perhaps think about helping them a bit.
Groups will be organized and run by the homeless people themselves, as much as possible. Outside help may be needed to begin a Group, but these people will withdraw when all is running well. They may, however, continue as Group consultants if the homeless people ask them to do so.
Some Groups will be for all homeless people, some will be for those living in encampments, and some will be for engaging with the public. Some groups will be for finding solutions to a specific problem, some for self-help, and some for entertainment.
I hope an increasing number of non-homeless people will attend a Group public event or two and invite their friends and neighbours to take an interest in the progress of Groups.
F. Suggestions To Improve Life In Encampments
Why don't social workers, charities, the Municipality, and so on not try to improve the lives of people in encampments beyond providing tents, food, garbage pickup, and portapotties? These are very much needed helps, but there are other improvements that could be made. Here are a few suggestions.
1. The most competent and helpful Tenters could assist the others with improvements. They could form a Tenter Council. If the Council set reasonable standards for Tenters, communicate them well, and are both pleasant and firm, many Tenter's lives will improve.
2. They could urge Tenters to keep the encampment clean. If a few starts cleaning, others will follow.
3. They could ask Tenters if they understand existing encampment rules and then suggest that, together, they try to improve them and add to them.
4. They could stress courtesy to other Tenters—and to people that Tenters meet.
5. The Council could talk to the Tenters causing the worst problems and ask them to leave, if necessary. This could be for an hour, a day, or permanently.
6. Could some Tenters act as security guards?
7. Could a doctor or nurse visit regularly; or perhaps they do?
8. Could there be a safety inspection each week, perhaps by Public Health?
9. Could portapotty cleaning and garbage pickup be more frequent? This might encourage Tenters.
10. Could the Tenter Council make frequent suggestions to social workers, charities, municipalities, etc. about how encampments, the lives of Tenters, and the lives of other homeless could be improved?
G. Questionnaire For The First Meeting Of Mentors Or Unofficial Volunteers With A Homeless Person Or Family
The Questionaire is coming soon. If you sign up for the At The Veranda Newsletter, you'll be informed when it appears.
H. How People Can Help Handbook
There will be an online handbook with further suggestions, links to sites that where help can be found, and more to help you help homeless people. It will be online soon. If you sign up for the At The Veranda Newsletter, you'll be informed when it appears.
I. Finally
Thanks for your interest in How We Can Help Homeless People,
Clair Culliford
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2. A Short Happy Video
This is a wonderful video about a fifth-grade class that worked together to raise money to buy adaptive playground equipment for the school’s many disabled children. Thanks to CBS Evening News.
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12. The Runaway
by Robert Frost
★ Listen to Clair Culliford read The Runaway. ★
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The American poet Robert Frost was born in 1874 and died in 1963. The Runaway appeared in his 1923 book, New Hampshire.
Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, "Whose colt?"
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey,
Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.
I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.
He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play
With the little fellow at all. He's running away.
I doubt if even his mother could tell him, "Sakes,
It's only weather." He'd think she didn't know!
Where is his mother? He can't be out alone.
And now he comes again with a clatter of stone
And mounts the wall again with whited eyes
And all his tail that isn't hair up straight.
He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
When other creatures have gone to stall and bin,
Ought to be told to come and take him in.
xxxxxxx
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4. Clair's Jottings #1: Kerfluffle
A kerfluffle is a fun, informal word for a commotion, fuss, or minor, sometimes comical argument. It often describes a situation that feels chaotic, silly, or overblown in the moment.
The word has roots in 19th-century Scotland, stemming from an older Scottish verb "fluffle," meaning "to muss" or throw into disarray.
The addition of the letter l is believed to mimic onomatopoeic words like "kerplunk" and playfully imply puffing up like a feathery animal.
It is frequently used to describe disorganized outbursts or mild disputes. "There was quite a kerfluffle at the checkout when someone tried to cut in line."
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5. Her Room
by Andrew Wyeth
Her Room was painted in tempera on a panel 24 3/8 inches x 48 inches by the American painter Andrew Wyeth in 1963. It pictures the room of his wife, Betsy Wyeth. The painter was born 1n 1917 and died in 2009.
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