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Monday January 30, 12 - 1 pm: Helping the Homeless: The Good Fight and the Hardest Cases, a Two-Hour Midday Special
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In the first hour of our two-hour Midday special on homelessness, Matt Bjonerud tells some of the stories at the core of his new e-book memoir, “From Riches to Rags: My Direct Approach to Solving Homelessness and How I Got My Ass Kicked.” He is a member of the advisory board of The Journey Home, Baltimore's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
    Producer: Nikki Gamer Producer: Sean Yoes To call into the show: 410-662-8780 locally, or toll-free at 1-866-661-9309 Watch the live video from Studio A during Midday with Dan Rodricks |
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Comments
This program breaks my heart
This program breaks my heart today and I wanted to write and express my outrage at the reckless of you and any of your guests to encourage or imply any kind of support for an average untrained citizen to take in a homeless person. I also took in a homeless person once and would forever after leave this to professional organizations and individuals professionally trained enough to understand the kind of danger that they are in by engaging in aid to someone who has problems beyond a typical untrained person's own understanding.
As a teenager, I had worked 4 years for an autonomous direct action homeless advocacy organization serving over 200 people in a small industrial city in Illinois. There I became friends with a homeless man. After talking with my mother, we offered him handyman work and a place to stay at her house while doing the work. Shortly after he began working and staying with us he raped me. My mother and I confronted him and told him that he had leave. To compound the horror, I soon found out that there was a strong possibility that he had HIV due to prior lifestyle decisions through contacts in the organization that I was working with. In the following months he repeatedly came back and stole things from our house when no one was home and left notes that he had been there.
Although all of my testing has been clear of HIV/AIDS in the last 15 years, I would never have felt safe again if I hadn't read the article from the local paper that told how he had stolen a car and was killed in a car accident resulting from a police chase. Since then, I have gone on to continue helping many people in need throughout my life but I would never ever encourage anyone to ever take in a homeless person. If someone wants to be involved in homeless issues, there are many organizations where they can become an advocate, donate time or money. Many organizations have volunteer training that stresses the importance boundaries in advocacy by not getting involved with someone you are trying to help- this includes giving rides, money, or sharing your living space. Please use professionalism in your role as a media personality with guest topic specialists to stress safety instead of reckless idealism in this delicate topic that could easily go in a horribly dangerous direction.