UPDATE: Glen James: Boston "Houseless" man disproves stereotype by returning cash, checks & property he found (Pics/VIDEO) - www.Houseless.org

"Houseless", not homeless!

UPDATE: Glen James: Boston "Houseless" man disproves stereotype by returning cash, checks & property he found (Pics/VIDEO)

There are a great many good people in the United States of America who are actually about being "Humanitarian" without ever needing to have such a title placed on them. many who self profess to be "Humanitarian" in reality are just talkers and not doers, unless of course, for some agenda that serves the select few of the group.

It always seems to turn out that those who actually care, do so because they actually are  and aren't just for an agenda; a "pat on the back"; a job and/or something for ones self.

Thanks to all those who are willing to be "REAL humanitarians" without being known as such.

Earlier information related to Glen James:

Glen James: Boston "Houseless" man disproves stereotype by returning cash, checks & property he found (Pics/VIDEO) - www.Houseless.org

"The Houseless"

Via

  20 September 2013 Last updated at 00:12 ET

Honesty pays off for homeless Boston man

 "James said a medical condition made it hard for him to work, but God had always looked after him", reports Pia Harold

Donations of more than $110,000 (£67,000) have poured in from across the US for a Boston homeless man who returned a lost bag with $42,000 in it.

Glen James alerted police after he found the backpack containing cash and traveller's cheques last weekend, and the bag's owner was then tracked down.

A complete stranger later started an online fund for Mr James after reading media reports about his honesty.

The man, Ethan Whittington, now plans to meet Mr James to give him the money.

This isn't only about rewarding a great guy. I think it's a statement to everyone in America”

Ethan Whittington Fund starter

Mr Whittington, who lives in Midlothian, Virginia, said he was so overwhelmed by Mr James' honesty that he decided to start the fund.

"The fact that he's in the situation he is, being homeless, it blew my mind that he would do this,'' Mr Whittington was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

He said his idea of starting donations on a crowdfunding website for Mr James "caught on like wildfire ever since".

"It's brought me a lot of hope. This isn't only about rewarding a great guy. I think it's a statement to everyone in America.

"If we come together and work toward one thing and work together, then we can make it happen."

Meanwhile, Mr James, a former Boston courthouse employee, said that he would not have kept "even a penny" of the money he had found in the backpack - even if he were desperate.

&Via

Boston: Honest Homeless Man Fund Tops $100k

9:04am UK, Friday 20 September 2013

A Good Samaritan who returned a backpack containing cash and traveller's cheques is rewarded with donations from the public.

 

 

Video: Poor Man's Honesty Makes Him Rich

A fund established to help a homeless man who returned a lost backpack containing more than $42,000 (£26,000) has raised almost $110,000 (£68,500).

Boston man Glen James, 54, spoke to police after he found the backpack containing $2,400 (£1,500) in cash and nearly $40,000 (£25,000) in traveller's cheques at the South Bay Mall.

The man who lost the backpack told workers at a nearby store and they called police, who later returned the backpack to him.

Virginia resident Ethan Whittington read media accounts of Mr James' honesty and started a fund for him on a crowd-funding website.

The fund has since raised more than $100,000, including $182 (£114) of pocket money saved up by two young children.

The Boston Police Department publicly thanked Mr James, saying his actions were "a remarkable tribute to him and his honesty".

Mr James said in a statement: "Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a penny of the money I found.

"I am extremely religious. God has always very well looked after me."

Lest we not forget!

"Houseless", not homeless!

In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home (Pics) - www.Houseless.org

"Houseless", not homeless!

The front page of today’s New York Times has a powerful article about the rising number of working New Yorkers who become "The Houseless" – the result of NYC’s worsening affordability crisis and failed Bloomberg policies.

Take notice citizens of the United States of America and all about the world, The New York Times finally comes forth to let you know - since you don't seem to trust us - that being "The Houseless" doesn't necessarily need to have you all stereotype us as: mentally ill; poor financial handlers; poor relationship intermingle people and so forth.

Is the trend reaching out into other areas, or are other areas pushing out those who fall victim to decayed society and/or profit/gain/control?

WELL?

How will you rate when and if you fall victim to society at hand?

WELL?

"The Houseless"

Via

In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home

By MIREYA NAVARRO 
Published: September 17, 2013

Alpha Manzueta, who has lived in a homeless shelter for three years, says she feels “stuck.” 
Michael Nagle for The New York Times

On many days, Alpha Manzueta gets off from one job at 7 a.m., only to start her second at noon. In between she goes to a place she’s called home for the last three years — a homeless shelter.

“I feel stuck,” said Ms. Manzueta, 37, who has a 2 ½-year-old daughter and who, on a recent Wednesday, looked crisp in her security guard uniform, waving traffic away from the curb at Kennedy International Airport. “You try, you try and you try and you’re getting nowhere. I’m still in the shelter.” 

Alpha Manzueta holds two security guard jobs, one at Kennedy Airport.

Michael Nagle for The New York Times

With New York City’s homeless population in shelters at a record high of 50,000, a growing number of New Yorkers punch out of work and then sign in to a shelter, city officials and advocates for the homeless say. More than one out of four families in shelters, 28 percent, include at least one employed adult, city figures show, and 16 percent of single adults in shelters hold jobs. 

Mostly female, they are engaged in a variety of low-wage jobs as security guards, bank tellers, sales clerks, computer instructors, home health aides and office support staff members. At work they present an image of adult responsibility, while in the shelter they must obey curfews and show evidence that they are actively looking for housing and saving part of their paycheck. 

Advocates of affordable housing say that the employed homeless are proof of the widening gap between wages and rents — which rose in the city even during the latest recession — and, given the shortage of subsidized housing, of just how difficult it is to escape the shelter system, even for people with jobs. 

“A one-bedroom in East New York or the South Bronx is still $1,000 a month,” said Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy and housing services group. 

“The jobs aren’t enough to get people out of homelessness.” 

David Garza, executive director of Henry Street Settlement, which runs three family shelters and one shelter for single women with mental illnesses, said that five years ago his shelters were placing 200 families a year into permanent housing. Last year, he said, they placed 50. 

“Without low-income housing, it’s a maze with no way out,” Mr. Garza said. 

The employed homeless are constantly juggling the demands of their two worlds. 

A 45-year-old woman named Barbara, who works part time as a public transit customer service representative, said she had to keep items like razors and nail clippers at a storage center because they were not allowed in the shelter for security reasons. 

Sometimes she takes a tote bag filled with dirty clothes to work to take to the laundromat afterward, she said, because the machines at the shelter are always either broken or being used. 

But, she said, there is no escaping the noise and fitful sleep of a dormitory shared with eight other women. 

Like most homeless employed people interviewed for this article, Barbara did not want to be identified by her full name for fear of losing her privacy or her job. She has been homeless since 2011, she said, when her unemployment insurance ran out and she could no longer afford her apartment in Brooklyn. No one at work knows, she said. 

“When it comes to the professional arena, I want people to think that I got it together, that I’m not living paycheck to paycheck, that my only option isn’t to buy secondhand,” she said.

Sometimes homeless workers discover one another. 

Deirdre Cunningham, 21, who works two part-time jobs — as a bank teller and as a sales clerk for an electronics store in Manhattan, said that at one point a co-worker at the store invited her to an evening event. “I said, ‘I can’t go, because I have curfew,’ and this co-worker said, ‘What do you mean curfew?’ ” 

“I said, ‘I live in a shelter,’ and she said, ‘I do, too.’ ” 

Ms. Cunningham, who has a 4-year-old daughter, said she has always been open about her struggles. “A lot of people have problems, too,” she said. 

She said she left her parents’ home in the South Bronx in 2011 because she did not want to expose her daughter to “family issues.” Two years and three shelters later, she moved in August into her own $900-a-month one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with the help of a rent subsidy from the Coalition for the Homeless. But the aid lasts for only two years.

“Now that I got my living situation under control, now it’s time for me to go back to school, get a better job, be more of a mother,” said Ms. Cunningham, who has completed training as a medical assistant but aspires to be a journalist.

“My daughter wants to take ballet,” she said. 

Deirdre Cunningham also works two jobs, as a bank teller and as a sales clerk at an electronics store. 

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times

A city-commissioned study by the Vera Institute of Justice in 2005 found that “contrary to popular belief,” 79 percent of homeless heads of family had recent work histories and more than half had educational levels, up to college, that made them employable. 

Most, the study found, had experienced “destabilizing” events before entering the shelter, most commonly the loss of a job, an eviction or the loss of public assistance benefits. 

In 2004, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled an ambitious plan to reduce the city’s homeless population — then 38,000 — by two-thirds in five years. The plan envisioned shifting dollars away from the shelter system to create low-income housing with social services. 

To make the shelter system less inviting, the city also stopped giving homeless families priority for public housing, and made it harder for those who left the system to return. 

In 2011, when the state and federal support were withdrawn, the city ended a program that gave rent subsidies for up to two years to help families move out of shelters and into their own apartments.

Now the number of shelter residents hovers around 50,000, according to the city’s Department of Homeless Services. More than 9,000 are single adults and more than 40,000 other residents are in families, including 21,600 children. The average monthly cost for the government to shelter a family is more than $3,000; the cost for a single person is more than $2,300. 

Linda I. Gibbs, Mr. Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for health and human services, said there were no local resources to keep up with demand for subsidized housing after both federal and state money dried up. 

Advocates for the homeless say the city should restore housing assistance for shelter residents, including giving them priority for public housing. 

But in an interview, Ms. Gibbs reiterated the Bloomberg administration’s long-held position that more benefits only attract more people to shelters. “That drives more demand,” she said. “It’s a Catch-22.” 

Ms. Gibbs said officials were now exploring expanding a city program that helps families at risk of losing their homes to stay in place. 

But those like Ms. Manzueta, the security guard, still need a way out. 

She said she managed to hold on to her $8-an-hour positions and to take courses to learn new skills. But with an eviction marring her credit record and unable to afford more than $1,000 for rent, she has not been able to land an apartment. 

“New York City,” said Ms. Manzueta, a native, “is the hardest city to live in.”

Lest we not forget!

"Houseless", not homeless!

Glen James: Boston "Houseless" man disproves stereotype by returning cash, checks & property he found (Pics/VIDEO) - www.Houseless.org

"Houseless", not homeless!

Honesty: Glen James smiles as Boston police commissioner Edward Davis looks on (Picture: AP)

Glen James: Boston "Houseless" man disproves stereotype by returning cash, checks & property he found

The whole problem with falling victim to becoming "The Houseless" is all too quickly being stereotyped, especially those who often turn out to be more righteous than those with jobs, a place to call home and/or have standing in society.

Granted, there are many who only play the system for their own profit/gain/control, but does that excuse those who claim to be qualified to help from not actually HELPING?
WELL?

"The Houseless" has accumulated countless "Houseless" stories of abuse; wrongful stereotyping; help organizations and/or those calling themselves "HUMANITARIANS" who AREN'T qualified to actually be righteous unto those they claim to HELP and more. Stay tuned as the TRUTH comes to you via www.Houseless.org


Could it be that the massive system of "HELP" that has been created is first and foremost about profit/gain/control while only "PIMPING" the less fortunate?
Well?


Could it be that it had taken about 1 year to finally recognize Mr. Glen James is only due to ?
WELL?


Why isn't Mr. Glen James actually being treated as a human in accordance with what he needs, not what the system wants him to be treated as?
WELL


It's always a blessing to know that there does exist those who are "about it" without needing a "pat on the back", a tax break, and/or some sort of cause to fund their business. Thanks to Ethan Whittington, a 27-year-old from Midlothian, Va. and all of those who are about it when it comes to being righteous.


Could it be more than about time society in the United States of America actually puts into place what they preach unto other countries?
WELL?

"The Houseless"

(Newest articles are first)



Via

Homeless man Glen James returns £26,000 found in Boston backpack

Tuesday 17 Sep 2013 1:31 pm

A homeless man in the US who returned a backpack containing thousands in cash and traveller’s cheques said he would not have kept ‘even a penny’ if he was desperate.

Glen James found the rucksack at a shopping mall in Boston and flagged down patrol officers to hand it over.

The backpack contained about £1,500 worth of US dollars, almost £25,000 in traveller’s cheques, a Chinese passport and personal papers.

Its owner told workers at a store at the mall he had lost the bag. He went to the police station, where officers confirmed it belonged to him.

Mr James, who has been homeless since 2005, was honoured on Monday at Boston police headquarters, where commissioner Edward Davis thanked him for his honesty and gave him a special citation.

In a statement, Mr James said: ‘Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a penny of the money I found.

‘I am extremely religious, God has always very well looked after me.

‘I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone – every pedestrian stranger – who has given me spare change. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’

& Via

Homeless man in Boston honored by police for turning in backpack full of cash, checks

Published September 17, 2013

FoxNews.com

Sept. 16, 2013: Glen James, of Boston, left, smiles in the direction of members of the media as Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, right, looks on during a news conference at the police headquarters, in Boston. (AP)

A homeless man in Boston was honored Monday for flagging down police after he discovered a bag filled with $2,400 in cash and nearly $40,000 in travelers checks, The Boston Globe reported.

Last summer, Glen James, who is in his 50s and lives in a homeless shelter, noticed a young man at the South Bay plaza in Boston leave behind a large bag, the report said. James observed the bag’s contents, and alerted police because “God has always very well looked after me.”

“Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a penny,” he wrote in a statement due to embarrassment about a speech impediment.

James received a citation from Boston’s police commissioner and there has been a website made, www.gofundme.com/4by2as,  to raise money for James, who said he receives food stamps and panhandles at times because “It’s just nice to have some money in one’s pockets so that as a homeless man I don’t feel absolutely broke all the time.”

Click for more from Boston.com.

& Via

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis gave a citation honoring Glen James in Boston.  Matthew J. Lee/Globe staff

Police honor homeless man’s good deed

By Peter Schworm Globe Staff  

  September 16, 2013

Under the canopy at the T.J. Maxx store, Glen James sat among the shopping carts, shaded from the late-summer sun. As shoppers bustled through the South Bay plaza Saturday, James proofread a letter, resting on the bag he brings with him when he panhandles.

As he read, James noticed a young man nearby, sitting on an overturned carriage. He had a bag, too, a black backpack at his feet. James went back to his letter.

When James looked up again, the man was gone. But his bag was still there.

After a time, James went over to see what had been left behind. Inside, he found $2,400 in cash and nearly $40,000 in travelers checks, along with a passport and personal papers. For a homeless man who subsists on food stamps and spare change, it was a staggering sum, maybe even a chance at a new life.

But James, a slight, bespectacled man in his mid-50s who says he has been homeless for five years, said the thought of keeping the money never crossed his mind.

“Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a penny of the money found,” he said Monday in a handwritten statement. “God has always very well looked after me.”

James immediately flagged down police, who in short order returned the bag to its owner, a student visiting Boston from China. James, a man who lives in a homeless shelter and relies on charity for change to wash his clothes, had returned a small fortune without a second thought.

For his actions, James received a citation Monday at Boston police headquarters, where Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis praised his “extraordinary show of character and honesty.”

“It really is a remarkable tribute to him,” Davis said.

James, who has a speech impediment, said little at the ceremony, saying he was self-conscious about his stutter. As cameras flashed, he smiled nervously and appeared somewhat overwhelmed.

But when asked how he felt about returning so much money, he did not pause.

“Very, very good,” he said, letting loose a hearty laugh.

In his statement, James wrote about how he found the money and a bit about himself. He had worked at a courthouse for 13 years as a file clerk, he said, before being fired. On Monday, the courts could not immediately confirm his employment. James could have gotten another job, he said, but he suffers from an inner-ear disorder that causes prolonged vertigo spells.

“The shelter is the perfect living situation with someone who has Meniere’s disease,” he wrote. “There are many people in the shelter to attend to me.” 

Glen James said it never occurred to him to keep the money in the bag he discovered at the South Bay shopping plaza in Boston. The backpack had $2,400 in cash and nearly $40,000 in travelers checks and belonged to a student from China.  Matthew J. Lee/Globe staff

James said he has siblings and other relatives he could live with, but does not want to burden them.

He said he had not met the man whose bag he found, but said he was “very glad to make sure” it was returned to him safely. 

James said he receives the “blessing” of food stamps and panhandles for money for laundry, transportation, and “odds and ends.” Just having a little money, he said, can make all the difference.

“It’s just nice to have some money in one’s pockets so that as a homeless man I don’t feel absolutely broke all the time.”

James thanked all the people who have given him spare change, including mayoral candidate Charles Yancey, who had dropped a total of $7 into his cup.

James’s story compelled Ethan Whittington, a 27-year-old from Midlothian, Va., who has never been to Boston, to launch a fund for James at www.gofundme.com/4by2as . Within the first four hours, Whittington’s campaign raised $3,152, which he plans to deliver to James.

After receiving the backpack from James, police notified mall security. They were later contacted by an employee at Best Buy, who said a customer had told them he had lost his backpack containing a large sum of money. 

The owner was positively identified by his passport, police said.

As he left the ceremony at police headquarters, James took deliberate steps, his eyes fixed on the floor. Then employees watching from behind their desks stood and applauded. His eyes widened, and he nodded his thanks.

Outside the station, James was asked if there was anything he would like, anything at all.

As he got into a police cruiser that would take him back to the shelter, he said, “No war.”

Matt Lee of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globepete.

& Via

Homeless man honored for turning in bag holding $42K

 Michael Winter, USA TODAY 5:44 p.m. EDT September 16, 2013

"Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a ... penny," Glen James said.

(Photo: Karen Bleier AFP/Getty Images)

A homeless man in Boston who said "God has always very well looked after me" was honored Monday for returning a Chinese visitor's lost backpack that contained $2,400 in cash, nearly $40,000 in traveler's checks and passports.

Though he has been homeless for several years, Glen James said in a written statement, "Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a ... penny of the money I found," The Boston Globe reported. He flagged down a police officer Saturday after finding the bag at the South Bay Center in Dorchester.

"I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone — every pedestrian stranger — who has given me spare change. Thank you!" read the statement James handed out at police headquarters because "I don't talk too much because I stutter."

"It's just nice to have some money in one's pocket so that as a homeless man I don't feel absolutely broke all the time," he said.

Police Commissioner Edward Davis presented James with a special citation.

"He's an honest guy and realized the property belonged to someone else," Davis said.

James said he had worked at a courthouse for 13 years but lost his job and became homeless in 2005.
As word of the good deed spread, a Virginia man began an online campaign Monday to raise $50,000 to donate to James.

"I thought what he did was very honorable," Ethan Whittington, of Richmond, Va., told Boston Magazine.

In-depth articles about "The Houseless"

The Homeless at College

&

Down and Out in L.A.: When the Middle Class Goes Homeless

&

After Recession, More Young Adults Are Living on Street

Lest we not forget!

"Houseless", not homeless!