From the Washington Post:

Mayor Richard Berry was driving around Albuquerque last year when he saw a man on a street corner holding a sign that read: “Want a Job. Anything Helps.”

….as part of a push to connect the homeless population to services, Berry had taken to driving through the city to talk to panhandlers about their lives. His city’s poorest residents told him they didn’t want to be on the streets begging for money, but they didn’t know where else to go….

Kellie Tillerson…at St. Martin’s Hospitality Center…said the way to dispel people of the negative associations with panhandlers is for them to do what the mayor did and engage on a human level.

“Genuinely ask why they are in the predicament they are…Many have medical conditions, they don’t have the proper identification — you can’t get a job without one. They don’t have a Social Security card. Those little things we take for granted prohibit people from getting a job. Don’t assume they are lazy.”

…a lot of the people who get picked up by the van were not aware of all the services available to them. One man who recently got out of prison returned to St. Martin’s the day after taking one of the city’s jobs. She said it enrolled him in the day-labor program….

“He now has a support system he…didn’t know existed…“It’s life-changing for them. He …said, ‘I would much rather earn my money than have someone hand it to me.’ ”

From the Guardian 2015

In honor of the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden, New Forsyth Conservancy and the Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Gardens. Preserving life as we want to know it for our lives and future generations….

Garden activism includes planting a flower or a free library, collecting rainwater or signatures, creating and maintaining homes for insects or humans, …

We do a lot with a little.

“On a hot summer’s day, the sun beats down through a canopy of fruit trees and the breeze carries the smell of roasting pork. Birdsong can be heard alongside salsa music. But this is no Caribbean island – this is downtown Manhattan.

“When you come here, you swear you are in Puerto Rico,” says Marta Montañez, who has lived in and around the Lower East Side for 62 years, after immigrating to the US when she was six.”

“The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, located at 45-12 165th St., served as a burial site to more than 1,000 African-American slaves and Native Americans since the late 1800s. According to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), death records from 1881 to 1898 reflect that 62 percent of the buried were African-American or Native American, 34 percent were unidentified and over half were children younger than age 5.”

Getting New Yorkers Into the City’s Wilderness. All 10,000 Acres of It.

….Kelly Bamfo, 18, was helping lay another part of the trail. He said it was so quiet that he felt as if he was somewhere far away from the city. “When I come out here, I don’t hear the car honks and the trains and the people screaming and yelling,” he said.

If he was not working at the park, he said he would probably be playing video games with his friends… “I feel like I’m growing,” he said. “I realize now my world is not just about being inside, new apps and new games and things. There’s more to life than just technology.”

Photo: Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

“Across New York City, outdoor time used to be the perfect antidote to the bustle and frustration of urban life.

Not anymore. Today, it can just add to the stress.” Read more article ….

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