2 homeless people die in Canada

Beyond the Homeless MythPeople who don't have shelter are houseless - not homeless! Homelessness has nothing to do with a lack of shelter.

Define Homeless: 'An inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community,' (Dominic Mapstone). This fact is now recognized by Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.

If the problem was a lack of shelters for the homeless why aren't all the homeless shelter always full? During winter they are more busy but more shelters won't solve the problem.

So often on the street I've seen people shake a set of keys with a big smile on their face saying 'I've got a place.' But often they end up spending most of their time on the streets anyway because they just don't know anyone else other than other homeless people and an empty room is very lonely.

Homelessness is about a lack of connectedness. Belonging somewhere is about belonging with other people. Like belonging to a family or local community.

The largest social demographic in first world countries that experiences homelessness are actually elderly people who are houseful. Quite often their spouse has died and their children live at a distance. They feel the same loneliness and abandonment as the person living on the street.

People in institutions including prisons or juvenile justice centres often feel the same loneliness or more accurately experience homelessness as the only people they have contact with other than the other 'homeless' inmates are people paid to be a part of their life. These people are the equivalent of people who work in soup kitchens or shelters on the streets.

Imagine that, only having contact with people who are paid to have contact with you! This is chronic homelessness.

The Homeless & Rebeccas Community Rebeccas Community was founded in 2002 by Social Worker Mr. Dominic Mapstone and Mr. Gerry Denton to support people who experience homelessness or are imprisoned - especially children. Our approach is centred around spending time with homeless people for the sake of getting to know them and becoming a part of their lives so this sense of connectedness is established... at least with our community. We also fund the national schoolies week website, a peer education program that helps promote safety during schoolies week..

Hospitality House

Rebeccas Community runs programs that relieve suffering and help homeless people establish social connections and find their way not only off the streets but into the community. For the past six years, our home / office / place of hospitality in one has been a place where we welcome homeless people (who we have come to know over the past decade) to either drop-in for a day or to stay for a couple of months.

Beyond the model of homeless shelters, hospitality house is much more like a family home where people come for sanctuary and belonging. We keep in touch with people long after they are off the streets and have moved on from hospitality house. We expect to continue this relationship, if only by phone for many years to come. By acting more like a family and less like a welfare service we are responding to the experience homeless people have in a way that is very unconventional. But it works.

http://www.homeless.org.au/.....

There have been over 250 major wars in the world since World War II, in which 23 million people have been killed., tens of millions made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved. Over 37 (or 42) million people have by killed by wars in the 20th century. Three times more people have been killed in wars in the last 90 years than in all the previous 500.

There are over 35 major conflicts going on in the world today. In armed conflicts since 1945, 90 per cent of casualties have been civilians. 3 out of 4 fatalities of war are women and children.

In the wars of the last decade, more children were killed than soldiers. In the last decade, child victims of war include an estimated 2 million killed, 4 to 5 million disabled, 12 million left homeless, and more than 1 million orphaned.

There are 300,000 child soldiers in the world.

Landmines maim or kill approximately 26,000 civilians every year, including 8,000 to 10,000 children. At least 75% of landmine victims are civilians. It is estimated that there are between 60 and 70 million landmines in the ground in at least 70 countries.

More than 500 million small arms and light weapons are in circulation around the world. In major conflicts since 1990, they have caused 4 million deaths - about 90 per cent of them civilians, and 80 per cent women and children.

There are approximately 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world today.. Som 5,000 nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on a few minutes notice.

Current global military spending is approximately $800 billion per year; more than the total annual income of the poorest 45% of the global population.

Genocide and other mass murders killed more people in the 20th century than all wars combined. Between 54 and 80 million people have been killed in genocides in the the last century. Between 170 and 360 million people have been killed, in total, by governments (democide) in the 20th century, apart from war.

human rights & social justice

33% of the world's people live under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes. 35% of the world's people live in countries in which basic political rights and civil liberties are denied (such as freedom of speech, religion, press, fair trials, democratic political processes, etc).

1 billion people - 1/3rd of the world's labor force, is unemployed or underemployed. An estimated 27 million people are enslaved around the world, including an estimated 20 million people held in bonded labour (forced to work in order to pay off a debt, also known as 'debt bondage').. At least 700,000 people annually, and up to 2 million, mostly women and children, are victims of human trafficking worldwide (a modern form of slavery -- bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions)..

About 246 million, or 1 out of 6, children ages 5 to 17 worldwide are involved in child labor. Nearly three-fourths of these, about 180 million children, including 110 million under age 15, are exposed to the worst forms of, or hazardous, child labor. Some estimated 8.4 million children are trapped in the most abhorrent forms of child labour - slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other such activities.

Women account for 70 percent of the world's people who live in absolute poverty. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. Worldwide, a quarter of all women are raped during their lifetime. Depending on the country, 25 to 75 percent of women are regularly beaten at home. Between 10% and 50% of women report they have been physically abused by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Over 120 million women have undergone female genital mutilation. Women hold only 12% of parliamentary seats worldwide. Women account for 2/3rd's of the world's illiterate adults, and girls account for 2/3rd's of the world's children without access to education.

In 1998, extrajudicial executions were carried out in 47 countries, 'disappearances' occurred in 37 countries, torture occurred in 125 countries, prisoners of conscience were held in 78 countries, unfair trials for political prisoners occurred in 35 countries, detentions without charge or trial occurred in 66 countries, executions were carried out in 36 countries, and human rights abuses were committed by armed opposition groups in 37 countries.

There are over 45 million refugees and internally dispaced people in the world.

http://www.worldrevolution.org/projects/globalissuesoverview/overview2/BriefOverview.htm...

Rev. Jermano