“...Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

If the US is truly to be a “golden door” of opportunity, we must guarantee all our citizens basic rights to sleep, dignity, health, and a chance to work hard and provide for their families.

As the economy has tanked over the past year, more and more Americans have ended up on the streets, and grassroots groups around the country are trying various tactics to provide short-term shelter for everyone.

Some examples:

Here in Portland, we have the nearly ten-year-old Dignity Village as a pretty successful example of a by-the-bootstraps approach of creating self-governed micro-housing (see www.dignityvillage.org, and www.doorwaystodignity.org). Representatives from local social service agencies, city government, and homeless advocates formed the Citizens Commission for Ending Homelessness a few years ago. The CCEH is currently working on a “Ten-Minute Plan to End Homelessness” as short-term solutions for providing dignified shelter this winter for everyone currently on the streets, and they are proposing a number of actions to the City Council and Mayor that can be taken immediately. See the petition posted at www.change.org and add your voice!

In Sacramento California, the tent city Safe Ground (www.safegroundsac.org) was disbanded by the Mayor a few weeks ago in an agreement with the members of Safe Ground to move to motels instead of illegally camping, provided the city of Sacramento continues to work toward more immediate solutions for humane housing. On Nov. 6, 2009, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and other leaders kicked off the "Sacramento Steps Forward" initiative, with a goal of establishing and fully funding 2,400 housing units for homeless people during the next three years. We congratulate their efforts toward long-term solutions!

We haven’t heard much lately from the Safe Haven tent city that formed over the summer in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. They were swept by police numerous times, and ended up having to camp on the floor inside a church community hall, but the small group of 20 or 30 people continued to work toward forming a democratic, self-governed community along the lines of Dignity Village’s organization. You can get information about Safe Haven at http://peopleproject.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/tent-city-in-illinois-safe-haven/. We’ll post more later when we hear how they are progressing.

While there is much more happening all around the country (and worldwide for that matter) on these issues, we’ll end for now and comment on other groups and activities in later postings. If you have information you’d like us to post or comments, send us an email at goldendoor@kwamba.com.