When Sheltering Possesions Trumps Sheltering People

With roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rent-able space for things, junk, stuff, possessions, etc., in the United States--a $38 billion industry!--America is a demonstrably materialistic society and becoming more materialistic every single day. It's  to the point where things, junk, stuff, possessions matter more than human beings....far more than people, it seems, considering the increasing number of homeless people across America,  the wealthiest nation on earth! 

“...the United States boasts more than 50,000 facilities and roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rentable space. In other words, the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times.”

This "need" for storage doesn't stem from frugal "depression babies" who feel the need to save everything just in case, because  the square footage of American homes has essentially doubled since the children of the Depression era started buying houses. No, the need for storage has increased right along with the  cache in our homes, which implies that, for the most part, things, junk, stuff, possessions have taken on an importance that just isn't there.  Not to say that  there are not legitimate reasons to rent storage for belongings: moving; changing circumstances; incarceration; future business endeavors, and ironically, homelessness ...but, certainly not  $38 billion worth! 

Take Orange County, California, one of the wealthiest counties in the United States.  It is home to four of the industry’s top 20 storage firms, in addition to the California Self Storage Association, the industry trade group, which is based in Irvine. Ironically, with its immense capacity to house junk, its capacity to house people is not so great. The 2017 federally mandated snapshot, taken every two years in Orange County, recorded 4,792 homeless people, more than half living without shelter. That's an 8% increase since 2015 because as one homeless man, Patrick Hogan, in Orange County said after losing his job after the 2008 financial crash ten years ago, "$10 an hour jobs doesn't cut it" in one of the most expensive corners of the nation.

“My experience has taught me one thing, the most discriminated group of people, at least in America, are the poor." -- Patrick Hogan

Today, Orange County is making headlines as it  faces bitter backlash over homeless relocation plans  as it is now under federal pressure to address what homeless advocates in court filings have called a humanitarian crisis.  According to the Los Angeles Times, affluent Orange County "faces special challenges because it has a relatively sparse infrastructure of services and support for homeless people." Of course, Ocean County is not unique. There is a relatively sparse infrastructure of services and support for homeless people all over America.

“A lot of people in America don't realize they might be two checks, three checks, four checks away from being homeless," -- Thomas Butler Jr., who stays in a carefully organized tent near a freeway ramp in downtown Los Angeles.

And you can't trust the official homeless rate in America.  To be sure, the reported rate is far lower than the actuality. The point-in-time (PIT) homeless counts often occur on a single night in January and are thus subject to significant sampling variability.  The accuracy of the count itself depends on   the number of volunteers, the weather, the count methodologies, and countless other variables that contribute to its inaccuracy.    In other words, the homeless population is hugely under-represented.

 For instance, Compass Family Services in San Francisco gathered their own data and discovered more than 35 times the number cited in the city’s report. 

“After a count of people on the streets and in shelters, conducted one night in January, and a follow-up survey, the city report found just nine families, or a total of 26 individuals in families who are homeless. Moreover, 87 percent of them live in some sort of shelter.

But between January and May, Compass recorded 319 homeless families — more than 35 times the number cited in the city’s report. And even that, Keller suggested, might be low.

According to a new study. the number of people living on the streets in San Diego County may be 50 percent higher than thought.

The bottom line is don't count on the PIT for accurate statistics on the homeless population, as it always under-counts, under-represents, and/or underestimates by a significant percentage.  The reason is, of course, obvious: the less homeless they count, the less money and resources they have to fork out.   

Links:

Self-storage: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38 billion industry

Self-storage business owners on alert for people living in units

Living in a Storage Unit: Alexander Ruggie’s Story

Self-storage industry keeps on keeping

Orange County At A Loss Over What To Do With People It Evicted From Homeless Encampment

Protests Push O.C. to Kill Its First Real Plan to Help the Homeless

America's Homeless Population Rises for First Time in Years

Dynamics of Homelessness in Urban America

Read more...

The Criminalization of Poverty as Hungry Americans Flood Major American Cities

Hunger in the US is now the highest since the era of the Great Depression as real unemployment is much higher than the 5.6% rate reported in the mainstream media (closer to 40-50% if you include the marginally employed); as earnings are stagnant or declining for 90% of the work force; as inflation of food prices spiral out of control, not to mention a significantly compromised social safety net and the subtle, yet continuous effort to criminalize poverty.  

Unlike now, during the Depression tightly knit communities and family farms stretched across the nation to provide a safety net that served to catch some or many of those who suffered the worst consequences of the failed economy.   Unlike now, people knew the entire nation was struggling.  They knew that times were hard and were less likely to fault the individual. 

Today, society is fragmented and the establishment media is taking advantage of that by deceiving people into believing our economy is improving and anyone who is not making ends meet...well, it's their fault! They're not trying hard enough!   In fact, the criminalization of poverty is a growing trend in America.

“But many things have changed in the last 50 years, some of them so recently as to have gone largely unnoticed by pundits and policy makers. The poor, and especially poor people of color, have long been over-represented in the prison population. This used to be attributed to the fact that the poor are more likely to be tempted by criminal activities such as theft and drug dealing. Just in the last ten years, however, it has become apparent that being poor is in itself a crime in many cities and counties, and that it is a crime punished by further impoverishment. As Karen Dolan explains in this hard-hitting report, a simple traffic violation – such as a broken tail-light – can bring down a cascade of fees and fines, which mount quickly if not paid on time and can lead to incarceration.

The mid-00s were a turning point in the criminal justice system’s treatment of misdemeanors. Local governments increased the fees, fines and court costs they levied for minor transgressions, and at the same time, increased the number of possible misdemeanors to include truancy (for which parents can be punished), driving with an expired license (as is the case in Washington, DC), putting one’s feet up on a subway seat (in New York City), and a variety of other minor infractions. The latter two are grounds for immediate arrest, leading to the imposition of fines and court costs. If the defendant cannot pay, he or she may be jailed and, in the ugliest twist of all – later charged for the cost of room and board, then re-jailed for failing to pay that. If the defendant is put on probation, he or she must pay for the probation officer and anything else required for monitoring, like an ankle bracelet.

Ferguson, Missouri helped bring attention to the extent of “offender-funded” criminal justice services. The city was relying on fees, fines, and court costs for 20 percent of its budget, effectively turning it into an occupied territory, with a 95 percent white police force supporting itself by forcibly preying on a nearly 70 percent black population.

Who benefits from this “criminalization of poverty”? In the short-term, municipalities and counties may appear to benefit, as well as the private companies that increasingly provide probation services and operate detention facilities and prisons. In addition, the increasing barriers, such as drug testing and criminal record searches, to social benefits like public housing, SNAP, and TANF may also temporarily help relieve cash-strapped local governments. But the overall effect is to perpetuate poverty and even expand the poverty population, to no possible good effect. Poor and indigent people cannot afford to pay for the means to coerce and incarcerate them, and nothing is gained by repeatedly jailing them. The criminalization of poverty – and increasing impoverishment of people judged to be criminals — amounts to a system of organized sadism.

This is the real “cycle of poverty:” Poverty leads easily to criminal charges from unpaid debts, unrenewed licenses and the like. Criminal charges in turn lead to ever-mounting debt and, despite laws prohibiting debtors’ prisons, to incarceration. There is no mystery about where government needs to intervene — first, by stopping the persecution of people who are already struggling to get by, and second, by mitigating that struggle

So, big cities across the nation are struggling to keep up with the growing number of homeless, hungry Americans. Washington, D.C., our capital wins this contest as it increased its homeless population by more than 60% in 2015. 

“The past year has marked the year of homelessness in the US as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Seattle — America's most populated areas — hosted a huge jump in the number of people on the streets, according to the Hunger and Homelessness study. Washington, D.C. ranks first in the list of cities with homeless as figures say it has 28 percent more homeless and 60 percent more transient families. The demand for food for the hungry rose 27 percent over last year's.

The survey said that across twenty-two cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, homelessness rose by 1.6 percent overall and handouts increased by 3 percent over the past year.

The recently released US Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey presents the results of a survey of 22 of the citie s whose mayors serve on The U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness.

A number of important findings emerged from the survey:

• Emergency food assistance requests rose by an average of 2.8 percent during the survey period in more than half, 61 percent, of the cities involved in the survey.
• Twenty-three percent of requests for emergency food assistance in the cities surveyed went unmet.
• Food pantries and emergency kitchens had to cut back on the amount of food given out as groceries or meals in 47 percent of cities involved in the survey. Additionally, in far more than half of cities surveyed, 57 percent, families and individuals had to cut down on the number of visits to charitable food outlets they could make each month. The same percentage of cities were unable to meet food requests by homeless and hungry residents demand because they lacked sufficient resources.
• Lack of affordable housing, an issue that continues to worsen in many places around the country, was the primary reason given for homelessness among families with children. Poverty, unemployment and low-paying jobs were the reasons that followed.
• In 50 percent of cities surveyed, mayors indicated they expected homelessness to rise “moderately” next year. Similarly, 65 percent of cities say they expect emergency food requests to “moderately” increase over the coming 12 months.

Read more...

Poverty is a Criminal Offense Even Punishable by Death.

Out of Reach 2012

Even though corporate profits have soared to record levels in recent years and the 1% continue to line their already lined pockets, most Americans are still struggling; there has been no economic recovery for the 99%. However, the "recovered" wealthy politically connected class has thoroughly convinced the waning middle-class to hate the poor, an ongoing effort since 1980. They tell the middle class, "Look how much it costs you to provide food stamps, welfare benefits, etc., to the poor," covering up the fact that they are the ones plundering all of the wealth, and effectively keeping the 99% at each others throats, therefore blind to the truth.

The mainstream media ensures that most of us stay blinded to that truth by continuously droning on and on about this "economic recovery" when, in actuality, median household income is actually 4.4 % lower than it was when the last recession officially "ended".  Economic recovery? How can that be when over  100 million American citizens are on welfare?  But despite the growing inequality between rich and poor, too many Americans still support the policies that deny basic humanitarian aid to our nation's poor, a population that's growing by leaps and bounds.

So it is, in the richest nation in the world, millions of people are out of work--or underemployed--homeless, and hungry, as it becomes increasingly commonplace to criminalize homelessness, not to mention, the act of helping the homeless. Those who dare to go out into the community to bring food and supplies are finding themselves arrested at an alarming rate. Yet, how does one get a job once you no longer have a home address, phone number, bus fare? If you become too ill to work?

Meanwhile, people experiencing homelessness are dying all over the nation. All too often, these lonely people are as invisible in death as they were in life.  At the very least, 700 homeless people freeze to death in the US every year.  In the Bay Area alone, since November 28, 2013,  seven homeless people died from exposure to the cold

Did you ever hear of Hart Island? No?  Well, you're not alone.  Hart Island is "a thin, half-mile long blip of land at the yawning mouth of Long Island Sound, just across the water from City Island in the Bronx" and is the largest publicly-funded mass grave site in the U.S. which has been closed to the general public for the last 35 years. Almost one million unclaimed/unknown dead, mostly homeless, are buried there. Loved ones are prevented from freely visiting these almost impossible-to-find grave sites. In Arpil of this year, an online searchable database of burial records was set up, however, access is limited to a small gazebo near the dock, rather than any of the actual burial sites.

“Its most important role has been to serve as what’s known as a potter’s field, a common gravesite for the city’s unknown dead. Some 900,000 New Yorkers (or adopted New Yorkers) are buried here; hauntingly, the majority are interred by prisoners from Riker’s Island who earn 50 cents an hour digging gravesites and stacking simple wooden boxes in groups of 150 adults and 1,000 infants. These inmates—most of them very young, serving out short sentences—are responsible for building the only memorials on Hart Island: Handmade crosses made of twigs and small offerings of fruit and candy left behind when a grave is finished."

Moreover, 41 states have debtors' prisons. Even though the U.S. officially made debtors' prisons illegal in the 1830s, you can still be jailed for showing "contempt of court" during a creditor lawsuit.  In Ohio they're throwing people into jail for as little as $300! That's right, in Huron County, "more than one in every five of all bookings...involved a failure to pay fines." 

Most of the homeless in America are just regular people (over 40% working) trying to survive, a situation that anyone of us can find ourselves in, yet, so many remain callous, as if it cannot happen to them.  If society is judged by the way it treats the least of its citizens, well...

Links:

Cities' homeless crackdown: Could it be compassion fatigue?

Bloomberg Strikes Again: NYC Bans Food Donations to the Homeless.

Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness

Poor Give More Generously Than the Rich

Charity and the poor: The rich and their 'bah humbug' attitudes

Why the Rich Don't Give to Charity The wealthiest Americans donate 1.3 percent of their income; the poorest, 3.2 percent. What's up with that?

Why Do the Rich Give Less than the Poor?

Food Not Bombs

Interfaith Hospitality Network

A mother loses her job, a father is kept from working by an injury, a family is forced from their home by fire or natural disaster. Healthcare costs soar, public transportation is underfunded, affordable housing is almost impossible to find. These are the reasons why families now make up 40 percent of the homeless population, and why one out of every four homeless people is a child.

In response to this crisis, the Interfaith Hospitality Network brings the faith community together to help families regain their housing, their independence, and their dignity. IHN is a partnership of congregations within a community helping families who are facing homelessness. It offers an opportunity for volunteers of all faiths to reduce homelessness and transform lives.

Interfaith Hospitality Networks are currently operating in 41 states and the District of Columbia, in large cities, suburbs, and rural counties. They mobilize community resources: houses of worship for lodging, congregations for volunteers, social service agencies for assessment and referrals, and existing facilities for day programs. This strategy enables networks to help homeless families achieve lasting independence at a third of the cost of traditional shelters.

Read more...

U.S. Ruling Class and the Expendable Class

Whether it's Paul Ryan showing up uninvited to clean already clean pots and pans at a homeless shelter, or the military and/or SWAT teams hunting the homeless for target practice, or the extensive toxic experimenting on the homeless, African Americans, and the lower-income, inner-city folks , revealed recently, or the overwhelming percentages of people from the lower socioeconomic strata behind bars for non-violent offenses, or the overwhelming number of minority poor awaiting execution,  it's clear how America's "naturally selected" cultural, political and socioeconomic ruling class regard  the lower class: expendable, disposable, nonessential, replaceable, unimportant, and only useful insofar as they function as lab rats to further their own interests...to quench their insatiable appetite for profit, power and privilege.

Just recently, it was reported that potentially deadly human experimentation is taking place this very day – sanctioned by the U.S. government! That's right. Illegal human experimentation by the EPA for the purposes of determining the effect of poisons is taking place right now. And let's not forget that 40-49% of homeless men are veterans. That's the thanks they get for fighting the wars that  line the already lined pockets of the rich and powerful.  That is, those who survive bloody combat.

The aforementioned examples are only a drop in the bucket.   Dig deep enough and one could fill an encyclopedia with cases illustrating the attempt by the "naturally selected" to dehumanize the portion of the population who were not born into, or have not "achieved" worldly success.  In other words, those "unfortunates", who were not naturally selected to become gods upon the earth. Because that is exactly how the ruling class see  themselves--as gods, or emerging gods. 

"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.” -- Albert Einstein

Of course, none of this is new. Not at all. However, there is no doubt that as the wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of the few, and technology continues to replace human beings in the workplace, and elites have no allegiance to anything but chasing the highest returns and cheapest labor around the globe, an ever-increasing number of us join the ranks of the easily sacrificed.

Read more...

As Homeless Rates Escalate in America, Feeding the Homeless is Banned.

50 million Americans live in poverty, yet feeding the homeless is gradually being outlawed across the nation. 

The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless:

Philadelphia

Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people are known to congregate....

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.

Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity.

Orlando

Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance....

Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result.

Houston

Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future even if they applied for one....

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

"We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people," said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

Dallas

Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries to feed the homeless....

A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.

Courts dismissed Dallas’ request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.

In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so.

Las Vegas

A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning the feeding of homeless people....

Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.

But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed “the indigent.”

In New York, the Bloomberg administration is  blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless. Why? Too much salt.

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.

They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. (Disclosure: I know the food is so tasty because I’ve eaten it — I’m an OZ member.) The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.

DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond says the ban on food donations is consistent with Mayor Bloomberg’s emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers. A new interagency document controls what can be served at facilities — dictating serving sizes as well as salt, fat and calorie contents, plus fiber minimums and condiment recommendations.

The city also cites food-safety issues with donations, but it’s clear that the real driver behind the ban is the Bloomberg dietary diktats.

Read more...

America's Youngest Outcasts are Increasing

Child homelessness is up 33% in 3 years. One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.

Read more...

Like Fighting Off a Hungry Tiger With Two Sticks.

As funding falters, shelters and soup kitchens across the nation are reporting as much as a 50% increase in applications for their services since 2007. Demand is sharply up at soup kitchens, and people are seeking emergency shelter and sadly, more are being turned away.

In a report published in December, 330 school districts identified the same number or more homeless students in the first few months of the school year than they identified in the entire previous year.

Joel Berg, calculated, in his book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America what would happen if we doubled the charitable food donations in America - 200% . The number of hungry Americans would decrease from 36 million to 32 million. In addition, Berg says a 10% increase is much more realistic and even that is considered too high.

In other words, relying on the private sector, charitable funds, foundations, or institutions to fight off America's growing "hunger" is like...well, it's like fighting off a hungry tiger with two sticks.

Read more...

The Forgotten Victims of the Sub-Prime Crisis

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, more than two million foreclosures occurred in 2007 alone, that is a 75% increase from 2006 to 2007, 149% increase from 2005, and exceeds the projected number of foreclosures for both years, 2008 and 2009.
It is now estimated that in 2008-2009, "2,258,457 more homes will be lost to foreclosure in the United States".

These statistics and many other factors fully explained in the foreclosure report, provide the grounds for believing the existence of a strong link between the foreclosure crises and increasing homelessness in communities around our nation.

The media seems to strongly suggest that the foreclosed upon are as much to blame as the lenders and the industry at large. This is not true for a number of reasons. The first one is the deliberate, needless complexity built into disclosing the terms of the mortgage contract itself, a huge problem (financial contracts) through the financial industry as a whole. The second one is apartment foreclosures. Numerous renters are suffering and sometimes homeless due to the actions of people they knew nothing about and had no control.

"People don't think of low-income families in apartments being hurt by the mortgage crisis, but in many ways, they are the most vulnerable -- and the least to blame when they get tossed out." Rev. John Estrem, CEO of Catholic Charities

There is no doubt greed and dishonesty characterized a certain percentage of the people who agreed to the terms of these loans, however, a much bigger percentage ended up as victims of a systemic greed and dishonesty that gradually infiltrated the infrastructure that supports and protects our financial system from corruption.

Once again, those we profess to support and honor are once again the group of people who suffer the most from the injustices intentionally incorporated into our prevailing social order as the housing crisis is hitting veterans especially hard.

"A recent Pentagon study has shown, military personnel are particularly vulnerable to predatory lending, and the financial stresses for many military families has been well documented". - Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel, Center for Responsible Lending

The people who get paid to understand how the housing and financial markets work not only dropped the ball, they greased their hands with a pound of butter before the game started. The integrity of the lending and investment banking profession has reached an all time low.

These mortgage foreclosures are hitting our communities already facing an uphill battle due cutbacks in federal programs designed to assist American citizens bear the weight of hard times in order to prevent them from sinking to a point of no return.

Meanwhile, our government rushes to the aid of the corruptors and corrupt, - Bear Stearns and all the legislation passed to facilitate the greedy agendas of faceless corporations and heartless hedge fund managers - the perpetrators of this financial fiasco, to prevent our economy from crashing. We, the people must demand, at the very least, the same concern for the innocent citizens paying the steepest price and safeguards put in place preventing the greedy, unethical behavior of a few from effecting the security and livelihood of the many.

Read more...

Arrested for Feeding the Homeless.

This can only happen in George Bush's "Born Again Christian" America.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Police in Florida have arrested an activist for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando.

Eric Montanez, 21, of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of destitute people in the city center, police said on Thursday.

Montanez was filmed by undercover officers on Wednesday as he served "30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle," according to an arrest affidavit. The Orlando area is home to Disney World and Universal Studios Florida.

The Orlando law, which is supported by local business owners who say the homeless drive away customers but has been challenged in court by civil rights groups, allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit. They can get two permits a year.

Police collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence.

Police spokeswoman Barbara Jones said in an e-mail it was the first time anyone had been arrested under the feeding ban.

Montanez was charged with a misdemeanor.

Read more...

Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- All Nathan Moore says he wanted to do was smoke pot and get drunk with his friends.

Killing Rex Baum was never part of the plan that day in 2004.

"It all started off as a game," Moore said.

The 15-year-old and his friends were taunting the homeless man -- throwing sticks and leaves -- after having a couple of beers with him.

No big deal, Moore says, but he's sorry for what came next.

It was a mistake, he said, a sudden primal surge that made him and his friends Luis Oyola, 16, and 17-year-old Andrew Ihrcke begin punching and kicking Baum.

"Luis says 'I'm gonna go hit him,' We're all laughing, thought he was joking around,'" but he wasn't, Moore concedes. "We just all started hitting him."

They hurled anything they could find -- rocks, bricks, even Baum's barbecue grill -- and pounded the 49-year-old with a pipe and with the baseball bat he kept at his campsite for protection.

Ihrcke smeared his own feces on Baum's face before cutting him with a knife "to see if he was alive," Moore said.

After destroying Baum's camp, the boys left the homeless man -- head wedged in his own grill -- under a piece of plastic where they hoped the "animals would eat" him.

Then, Moore says, they took off to grab a bite at McDonald's.

Baum's murder was indicative of a disturbing trend.

A National Coalition for the Homeless report says last year, there were 122 attacks and 20 murders against the homeless, the most attacks in nearly a decade.

Police found Baum's body two days after the teens attacked him.

They bragged about it around town. Police picked them up and they described what happened.

Ihrcke told police that killing "the bum" reminded him of playing a violent video game, a police report shows.

All three teens pleaded no contest to first degree reckless homicide charges and went to prison.

Moore recently turned 18 at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, where he is serving a 15 year sentence.

"When [the beating] stops, you say, 'What did we just do?'" he told CNN. "There's no rational explanation."

Teenage 'amusement'

"It's disturbing to know that young people would literally kick someone when they're already down on their luck," said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. "We recognize that this isn't every teenager, but for some this passes as amusement."

Criminologists call these wilding sprees "sport killing," -- largely middle-class teens, with no criminal records, assaulting the homeless with bats, golf clubs, paintball guns. (Watch how nights are cold, fearful for Milwaukee homeless Video)

Some teens have even taped themselves in the act. Others have said they were inspired by "Bumfights," a video series created in 2002 and sold on the Web that features homeless people pummeling each other for the promise of a few bucks.

A segment called "Bum Hunter," hosted by a Crocodile Hunter-like actor wearing a safari outfit, shows him "tagging" homeless people by pouncing on them and binding their wrists.

The distributors of "Bumfights" have claimed they've sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

But the company has had to deal with a couple of legal issues unrelated to the Baum case.

Last year, three former homeless stars of "Bumfights" won a civil suit against filmmakers. Santa Monica attorney Mark Quigley, who represented Rufus Hannah, known as "Rufus the Stunt Bum" to series' fans, said he is unable to disclose the amount of the settlement.

Also, in July 2006, a California judge ordered "Bumfights'" producers Ryan McPherson and Zachary Bubeck to spend 180 days in jail for failing to perform community service related to guilty pleas they previously entered to charges of staging illegal street fights.

"Bumfights" directors did not answer CNN's request for an interview.

Attacks across the nation

Incidents of teen-on-homeless violence dotted the map last year. Florida racked up at least six such attacks in 2006. (Homeless attack across U.S.)

In Lauderhill, four teens were arrested after they allegedly videotaped themselves beating, dragging, and stealing from a homeless man.

The victim has not been found, but the four face one charge each of strong-armed robbery.

Earlier this month, teens in Corpus Christi, Texas, videotaped themselves attacking a homeless man.

Commander David Torres said police arrested a 15-year-old and are looking for at least one more teenager and a 22-year-old who described on tape what they were about to do before they jumped on the man.

On the other side of the nation, former Oregon State University student Joshua Grimes stands accused of shooting and injuring a homeless man from his perch in a fraternity house window.

He has not yet entered a plea, but, according to a police report, he cried to detectives after the October shooting, telling them, "I didn't mean to shoot him."

At least three homeless people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, reported being attacked by teens on bicycles during a 10-day span in October, according to the homeless coalition.

In Huntsville, Alabama, six teens -- one of them 13 -- beat a homeless man with golf clubs, the coalition reported. But perhaps the most shocking of these examples was 2006's first recorded case of teen-on-homeless violence.

On January 12 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a surveillance camera captured two teens beating a homeless man with bats.

Prosecutors say 17-year-old skateboarder Tom Daugherty, 18-year-old Brian Hooks, a popular hockey team captain, and a third unseen teen, Billy Ammons, a high school dropout, assaulted two more homeless men that night.

One of them was 45-year-old Norris Gaynor. A witness, Anthony Clarke, told police and CNN last year that he saw the three teens approach Gaynor as he slept on a park bench. Daugherty began whacking Gaynor with a bat, Clarke said. (Watch two teenagers beat a cowering homeless man with bats Video)

As Gaynor lay dying, Ammons shot him with yellow paintballs, later remarking that the beating felt like "teeing off," police said.

Gaynor was beaten so badly his own father didn't recognize him. Facing life in prison, the teens face trial for murder later this year. They have each pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Lingering questions

Stoops and Brian Levin, a California State University hate crimes expert, say common themes run through teen-on-homeless violence. The attackers are almost always boys, peer pressure and mob mentality sweep away caution, and parents don't suspect their children could be capable of such actions.

Laura Simpson didn't. Her son, Justin Brumfield, is serving an 11-year prison stretch in California.

In August 2005, Brumfield and William Orantes, both 19, beat 56-year-old Ernest Adams with bats. Adams emerged from a coma three weeks later with dents in his skull, permanent scars and no vision in one eye, the Los Angeles Times reported. Orantes is serving a three-year sentence.

Simpson, a sixth-grade teacher, says she is still tormented by her son's actions and wonders if her son's irritability was more than typical teenage moodiness.

She has other questions: Was her son, a natural follower, just succumbing to peer pressure? Was he that into "Bumfights"? Did he see the fear in Adams' eyes when he raised the bat to strike him?

In a sad irony, she had adopted him; his mother was a homeless drug addict, a revelation he had learned not long before the beating and which his attorney used to explain his rage.

Her son has told her he is sorry for what happened, but her questions remain unanswered.

"As a parent, of course you're going to question yourself," she said. "It was just hard to comprehend. The first thing was, 'Not Justin. There has to be a mistake,'" she said. "You think you know everything that's going on and you don't."

When the mob mentality takes over, even the perpetrators may not comprehend what's going on.

Back at the prison in Wisconsin, Nathan Moore seems baffled by his own actions. Killing Rex Baum now registers like a "blur" or "dream," he says.

Moore and his friends knew Baum from around town. Life had been painful for the homeless man from the start; alcohol eased it. As a kid growing up in Milwaukee, when his home life became too rocky, a neighboring family took him in. He drifted through school and a brief stint in the military, his friends say, a wanderer, a loner.

Homeless for years, he defied Wisconsin winters by constantly walking around the city, bundled in a coat patched with duct tape. For a few dollars, he pumped gas, shoveled snow off driveways, and walked neighborhood dogs.

More than 100 people came to Baum's funeral. Someone sent a newspaper clip of the story to Moore in prison.

"Every day I wish I could take it back," he said. "I seen [the] repercussions among everyone. I didn't think about any of this when [the beating] was going on."

Read more...