NLA Discussion: Advocates' talk

[AWilder106 at aol.com]

George, Art et al:

Around here--Boston/Cambridge--there are a lot of homeless people, and
numbers of homeless families.  If literacy can be used so people can get roofs
over their heads, let's do it.  I think the kind of literacy I care most
about--the starting stuff--can do this.  We need local, state and federal
allies, though. We need political knowledge and we need to work with people
without homes--and we need  a well-articulated homes policy up and down the
line.   

I never saw a homeless person on the streets here until the 1980's.  Doesn't
mean they weren't there, somewhere, but not to my view.  There are lots, now. 

We keep pulling bodies out of the river;  I think we should go farther
upstream and see what's going on.

I think our politics needs imagination and humor.  A friend of mine in
Birmingham, AL,  celebrated Martin Luther King's Day by a gigantic
rally/picnic--and the suggestion that people might want to give sheets to
homeless shelters.  Now, there's turning around a potentially violent occasion
to help the whole community.  I like that.

Andrea Wilder