Sean Gonsalves' 2005 classic, "Alms-Giving or 'Charity Wounds'?," which never really got the traffic it deserved, is posted today for your weekend reading pleasure.
"Whenever I write about biblical economic ethics, some offended conservative Christian writes to chastise me for my alleged ignorance of all the great charity work that Christians do, as if I haven't been steeped in a fundamentalist church tradition my entire life."
The other groups who show up every Saturday are not yet broadcasting their goodness online.
There is more action on the way, though.
Tri-County Outreach is also a Saturday regular, but they are taking the month off and will not return until October, but will be making a scene on Saturdays at 2pm.
Not sure when this Sunday lady is coming back. She promises to come back at least two times before year end.
Charities and wannabes: Please stop making it so difficult for our homeless service agencies to get people the help they need. And bring garbage bags and take your garbage home with you. And show our homeless a little more respect than smushed sammiches. Or if you can't do any of that, please just stay the hell home and send COTS a check. Nearly $0.90 of every dollar they raise helps house homeless Detroiters every year.
You gotta love when the suburban charities advertise their activities in Midtown online. It makes it so much easier for us to keep track of them and monitor what piles of cast-offs and garbage they are leaving. It makes it so much easier for the police department to prosecute litterbugs.
Any activity on the corner of Mack Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Third Avenue which draws folks away from getting real, professional, advanced social services at responsible neighborhood charities is a problem.
PBJ Outreach Inc in Plymouth is actively recruiting volunteers to hit Detroit's feel-good-about-yourself-and-then-leave crossroads every Saturday morning from 8:00-10:00 am. They're registered as a charity with the State of Michigan, so if their activities should leave any mess we have an address to which the DPD can send a ticket. And to think they're bringing kids as young as seven years old to that corner!
PBJ Outreach, if you really want to make a difference, open up a homeless shelter out there on North Territorial in Plymouth and take Detroit's homeless there Satuday mornings so they can see what all they're missing out on; otherwise, please let our licensed and trained professional non-profit welfare service agencies take care of our down and out.
Wayne State's Project Volunteer may provide volunteer opportunities for students at excellent non-profits like The Greening of Detroit and Habitat For Humanity, but they shouldn't be encouraging sammich distribution in the lot at MLK & Third or anywhere else off-campus in 48201, because Wayne State University certainly wouldn't tolerate this activity on their campus.
San Francisco Examiner editorial calls out some candidates for mayor for not having any plans to deal with homelessness in the city. Editorial notes that among their homeless population there are 20 homeless people who have cost the city "$2.3 million in repeated ambulance and emergency care as well as detox and psychiatric services."
The candidate on the list who stood out -- I know nothing else about him, but I like how he thinks:
Tony Hall advocates replacing what he calls “nonprofit homeless industry providers” that are “scamming the system” with “organizations whose business is charity, not welfare.”
Tell it like it is, Tony! Welfare, not charity! Not the other way around!
And keep checking back here where we will continue document charities-gone-wild and other activities that lure homeless people away from the resources they so desperately need. We will continue to keep you updated on affairs in Cass Park and Midtown, goings-on at CAYMC, and things you can do to give people facing hard times a hand up instead of a handout.
Wonder if Detroit has ever even tallied how much we have spent on medical, psych, and detox bills for our chronically homeless, money that could have been saved if the homeless in Midtown could have made it to the charities that best serve them instead of getting sidetracked by sideshows in Cass Park. Call your councilmembers and mayor to find out how much it's costing our city. Just don't bother calling Kwame Kenyatta's office -- he must have had a helluva week after Diane Bukowski's article came out.
Money raised for charities by this year's event or 2009's event: ?
I thought for sure the good people who opened their hearts and emptied their wallets and pantries would have learned by now how much money was raised, how many food donations were collected. I thought for sure Forgotten Harvest could have tallied up by now how many pounds of food they got -- after throwing out the expired or damaged ones, if any -- and given us a ballpark dollar amount on the donations. I thought for sure the event organizers would be let event-attenders know by now how much cash was collected in those plastic buckets for the ten charities who were to "directly" benefit from the event.
Maybe my Googler ain't working today, but it's still coming up with no results for "money raised by Kem concert."
