Give a homeless person a home, and he or she isn’t homeless.
 
This idea has long been a no-brainer for me.  And as it turns out, it's also true.  

That's not just for Grants Pass, where we’ve lived for a year, but everywhere else, too. 
 
Of course, the devil is in the details—and because of those specifics, goes beyond coming up with a place to sleep.
 
Yet for decades, this is how our country has mostly dealt with our chronically homeless population.   
 
Often, this put-a-band-aid-on-it policy means that these underserved Americans (about 600,000 people on any given night) are afforded brief respites at warehouse-like facilities in neighborhoods where filth, poverty and crime rule.  Some towns, like ours, have places in nicer neighborhoods where they’re called “rescue missions” and are faith based.
 
They do meet an immediate need—somewhere to lie down; a hot meal, and bathroom facilities.  But at least here, there are ironclad rules: no pets, no guarantee about a room for the next night, and a requirement that everyone has to attend at least one religious service, and sometimes more, every day.
 
This isn’t a solution to homelessness. 
 
But there’s a better way, and it will be here soon.
 
It’s called transitional housing.
 
These communities are neither new nor radical. They began popping up in the United States in the early 2000s, and now include Quixote Village in Olympia, Washington; Community First in Austin, Texas, and Second Wind Cottages in Newfield, New York.  Most feature tiny modular homes, sometimes single or sometimes a duplex, usually with a front porch and big enough inside for a bed and bureau.  A small amount of monthly rent is required; pets are generally allowed, and residents vary from a handful to a few hundred. Some allow children and some don’t.  But everyone is carefully vetted before admittance.  
 
These enclaves are also much more cost effective than letting the homeless wander the streets. 
 
In fact, with increased time in hospitals, overnights in jail and emergency shelter, taxpayers fork out about $40,000
per year per homeless person. But with transition programs, lives are supported by offering homes that can cost as
little as $1,500. 
 
Those who live here can also breathe a sigh of relief—gone are worries about safety; belongings being stolen, or where to find shelter on any given night.  
 
But the real key to success is case management.     
 
So, each enclave also has a brick-and-mortar community center, where social workers, mental health professionals and counselors connect residents to opportunities previously impossible, such as job training; applying for veteran and food benefits, and how to obtain a GED. 
 
Additionally, each center has mailboxes; a kitchen and dining area, and bathroom facilities.  Community gardens are also common, with sweat equity mandatory.  Most residents take about six months to successfully transition to an off-site home and job, but no one is evicted if goals haven’t yet been met.   
 
Now, a tiny home community for the homeless is coming to Grants Pass.
 
It’s named Foundry Village after the street where it’s located.  And, despite the COVID-19 pandemic; a contentious election year, and raging fires in this part of the state, groundbreaking is slated to happen by the end of this year.  
 
I’d heard about this project when we moved here last summer.
 
But the Village had been stalled by red tape and city leaders who believed this sort of housing was going to cause home values to plummet (they haven’t in other communities); excess littering around the area (hasn’t happened), and increased noise complaints to police (that hasn’t occurred either). 
 
It took over a year, but once Foundry steering committee members presented accurate facts and figures to the powers blocking the idea, as well as offering tours of an established transitional community about 35 miles south, the project was green lighted.   
 
This kind of housing won’t work for everyone.
 
But the overall success rate stands at 60 percent, and given that many residents have been previously homeless for years, those are pretty good odds.
 
The Hubster and I feel strongly that Foundry Village has a place here.
 
So, to the extent that we can, we’re volunteering time to make it a reality.
 
Masked, socially distanced and outside, we work at a booth a few hours every Saturday at our local Growers’ Market.  There’s a one-gallon glass jar on the table for donations, but mostly, we offer information.  That means answering questions; giving out pamphlets, and reassuring folks that Foundry Village will be A Very Good Thing for Grants Pass.  
 
And perhaps surprisingly, except for one man early on, who grumbled that “at least now we’ll know where they all are,” we’ve received an overwhelmingly positive response.
 
For those who can’t pull themselves up by the bootstraps because they don’t have boots, we hope to give them the
shoes they’ll need.  
 
Find out more about Foundry Village at www.foundryvillagegrantspass.com/.
 

Social media keeps me sane, focused and determined.
 
Given that I’m a writer, and on a laptop every day, some folks may be surprised to learn that I used to have zero interest in social media.
 
The fact of the matter is that I was blissfully happy without any of it. 
 
Well into the 1990s, I read newspapers to see what was going on around the world.  For work, I carried around a narrow reporter’s notebook, and did my research at libraries, where I scrounged through reference books, microfiche
and magazines.
 
I didn’t learn how to email until 1998, when I accepted a job where the task was forced on me. I immediately took to it.
 
I loved email.  I no longer needed to send a letter to make contact, or even pick up a phone to communicate. I no longer worried about time differences.  Best of all, I could do interviews this way, which gave my subject time to formulate thoughtful responses to my questions
 
Still, old ways die hard.
 
Maybe that’s why I didn’t join Facebook until more than a decade later.
 
Even then, the site seemed to be a massive time thief; who cared about the cutest kitten, or how to make easy pizza crust?  But during one week in 2009, five folks I knew sent me invites to “friend” them. 
 
I took that as a sign, and took the plunge.  
 
Quickly, I figured out that Facebook was another way to not only do research, but to find new stories and clients.  I was also able to reconnect with folks from my past—a sixth grade classmate who always sat in the back of the room, where he incessantly sketched hot rods; a dear friend who helped me navigate New York City, and relatives I hadn’t seen in decades.
 
Almost as an afterthought, it also became a platform for trading opinions and links with like-minded people. 
 
Yet, I only got on Twitter three years ago. 

There was just one reason to do so: it was a way to promote this writing blog.  It still is, but also, I could “follow” folks whose opinions and expertise are those that I trust and admire. 
 
These persons—John Dean, Maggie Haberman and Michael Avenatti among them—have the background, resources and experience which, every day, are helping me navigate our troubling times. 
 
Their tweets often make me angry and sad, but sometimes, hopeful. That’s all okay, because I also see that millions of others feel the same, and like me, are working hard to effect change.  Just knowing this keeps me sane.
 
Right now, I don’t feel the need to join Instagram or Snapchat, sites that my 20-year-old daughter prefers. 
 
Maybe it’s because there’s enough information on Facebook and Twitter to keep me determined to fight as hard as I can for our country. 
 
Don’t misunderstand me: I’d love to get back to writing posts about puppies and recipes and vacations (and occasionally, I still do).  For now, though, I will keep up with news that, in these astonishing times, is often difficult to comprehend.  I’ll also continue to share and retweet important information, because the bottom line is that it’s my duty as
​an American.    
 
Thanks to social media, my activism has soared. 
 
For this, I am grateful. 

I’ve written a petition to remove Bill Cosby’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
 
No one can deny that Cosby was a brilliant comic, writer and social activist.
 
Now, Bill Cosby is also a convicted sex offender.  This new identity happened in a Pennsylvania courtroom two
months ago, when the once powerful entertainer was convicted of aggravated indecent assault against a former
Temple University employee named Andrea Constand. 
 
After the verdict came down, Cosby didn’t apologize.  Instead, he shouted expletives at the prosecutor.
 
Constand wasn’t Cosby’s only victim.  In fact, off-camera, the celebrity icon had long led a double life—drugging and then sexually attacking women for most of his career. Many were minors, and many were raped.  So far, more than 60 courageous women have come forward.
  
But who knew?  For most of us, Bill Cosby was the happily married father and funnyman who first caught our attention on the TV show I, Spy, playing globe-trotting espionage agent Scotty.  Over the next two decades, Cosby had other high-profile gigs—including shilling for Jell-O Pudding Pops; producing Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids cartoons, and writing for PBS’s The Electric Company.  He was also a passionate activist for education, especially literacy.  
 
Then came Bill Cosby’s greatest success. The Cosby Show was a mid-‘80s comedy that starred Cosby as sweater loving obstetrician/gynecologist Cliff Huxtable, who was also America’s Favorite Dad.  Looking back, could it be that the part Cosby created for himself was his own inside joke?
 
Indeed, Cosby’s role away from the studio—that of a serial rapist—was on full throttle.  
 
Barbara Bowman was an aspiring actress in 1985.  Bill Cosby had taken the naïve teenager under his wing, but rather than helping her with her career, assaulted her multiple times.  The last incident saw Cosby trying to unclip his belt buckle while Bowman furiously attempted to wrestle from his grasp.  Angered, he sent her home to Denver.  Bowman’s agent did nothing, and a lawyer accused Bowman of making it all up.  That feeling of futility kept Bowman from going to the police, but she did talk to the press, and kept talking, beginning in 2004. 
 
Yet it wasn’t until a decade later that the rumors went viral.  The turning point came in the summer of 2015, when a New York magazine cover featured 35 women who accused Cosby of sexual assault. 
 
Around this time, colleges started rescinding the degrees and memberships they had given Cosby over the years.  But it wasn’t until the guilty verdict that the biggest guns did the same. These institutions included Yale University; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which announced that Cosby’s reprehensible criminal actions completely overshadowed his remarkable career).
 
This is all terrific news.  And, I expect that after Cosby’s sentencing in the fall—which could land the 81-year-old up to 30 years in prison—more organizations will do the same.
 
Still, I felt an overwhelming desire to do something myself.
 
I spent a lot of years living and working in Hollywood, so it hit me: even now, Bill Cosby has a star on the Walk of Fame.  Embedded in the sidewalks of 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street, the more than 2,600 stars are public monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry.  Those who live in the area might find the walk a bit hokey, but an astounding 10 million tourists visit it every year.  Many are families with young children.
 
Of course, some of the entertainers here are far from perfect.  Clark Gable may or may not have been involved in a fatal hit-and-run car accident; Charles Chaplin loved teenage girls (and married them), and Humphrey Bogart cheated on Lauren Bacall with his hairdresser. 
 
But Bill Cosby’s crimes—unchecked for so long, and involving so many victims—go way, way beyond the pale. 
 
Perhaps after seeing this petition, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (which manages the walk) will decide that it’s time to change its rule that even when there are rumors of misconduct, no one’s star can ever be removed.
 
But, the charges against Bill Cosby have now been proven in a court of law. 
 
The time has come to Do the Right Thing.   
 
I hope you’ll sign my petition.  Then, I hope you’ll pass it on. 
 
https://www.change.org/p/the-hollywood-chamber-of-commerce-remove-bill-cosby-star-now-from-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame
  

There, I did it again.
 
And once more, I couldn’t help myself.
 
I put on my community activist hat and went about correcting a wrong that needed to be righted.   
 
Maybe I got involved because I’m a journalist. Then again, it might be because I’m nosy (something, by the way, that all great reporters are). In every instance, it’s also because the issue at hand is one that has just rubbed me the wrong way.  So, probably, it’s all of these reasons that make me want to act.  
 
My latest personal crusade involved our town’s largest supermarket, a place where nearly everyone who lives here
buys groceries. 
 
I used to love the genteel mustached man who managed the store, but ever since he retired a couple of years ago, I began to question the decisions of its new manager.
 
This came to a head about six months ago, when I saw that the market was allowing a young teenager—one from at least 100 miles away—to stand right next to the entrance from early morning to nighttime.
 
This girl was collecting cold, hard cash for a group, she said, that helps wayward kids in trouble.  But, I’m familiar with this particular organization, and know that instead, it’s run by an extremely fundamentalist church which also practices gay conversion therapy.
 
When I complained to the manager, she told me, “My hands are tied.  There’s nothing I can do.  They filled out an application and it was approved by the district office.” 
 
Over several weeks, I continued to press her about allowing this organization to collect money.  After a while, she grudgingly told me I might contact the store’s corporate office.  So, I sent an email, but after two months, still hadn’t received a response (I’m nothing if not patient).  I was finally able to ferret out a complaint line number—it was well hidden within the company’s very large website, but this wily girl clown found it.    
 
By this time, I hadn’t seen the “we help teenagers” girl for a while, but now there was a new person, also from out of the area and also right at the entrance, soliciting funds to supposedly help hungry children in Africa. (Nope, I’d never heard of this organization, and had also never seen this person in our small town.)       
 
Thankfully, the customer representative I finally spoke with (somewhere in Ohio, I think) was on my side. 
 
In fact, right then and there while I was put on hold, she called the store manager, and told her that no soliciting was allowed, period.  I hadn’t known this, and now realized that the manager had lied to me from the get-go. There had been no forms that had been filled out and there had been no district go-ahead.  
 
A day later, the hungry children guy was still out front, so I decided to nicely ask the manager why she wasn’t adhering to her employer’s policy.  (I also asked friends on Facebook what they thought about these solicitors. They were unanimous in saying they hated them.  Many added that seeing someone standing next to a grocery store door with the sole purpose of collecting money crossed a personal boundary.)
 
I tried to be civil, but the manager was combative.  “I chose to break the rules,” she said, trying to stare me down.  “He seemed like a nice person, so I’m letting him stay.”    
 
As I continued to press her, she continued to say she had made the conscious choice to go against her employer’s corporate guidelines.  After a few minutes—perhaps she realized that I wasn’t going away—she then said that I had
now given her no other option.  Now, I was “forcing her to choose,” so, thanks to me, there would be no more solicitors out front. 
 
The man currently outside, she added, would be gone the next day. 
 
I went on to explain I was more than fine with local non-profits out front.  Girl Scouts could still sell cookies, or a nearby high school music booster club might promote raffle tickets.  In my book, service clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions are also A-Okay.  In fact, groups like this help to bond communities.  (Additionally, these folks have never gotten in anyone’s face.  They’ve always set up a table near, but never at, the front door.) 
 
No deal, said the manager. 
 
Thanks to my incessant complaining, she continued, there would now never be anyone out front again, ever.  I thanked her for following her store’s policy, but she had to get the last word in.  As she walked away, she turned around and snarled, “And, that is unfortunate.”  
 
I can take it, because it has now been more than a month since that encounter, and I haven’t noticed anyone from any shady organizations at the market doors.  Also, whenever I’ve run into the manager—both of us knowing that someone from the corporate office had a very firm conversation with her—she is polite. 
 
Hello, small victory.
 
I’ve had a handful of other forays into neighborhood activism. 
 
None were planned.
 
In fact, the first issue was tackled only because it was a business right down the street from the yoga studio I attend. 
 
Housed in a strip mall, this enterprise advertised massages for insanely low prices.  The blinking neon sign beckoning customers also flashed well after nine o’clock, which is essentially when our sweet little beach town rolls up
its sidewalks.  Something seemed off, but when I next heard a few people saying they knew customers who had
received “happy endings” there (www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Happy%20ending), I decided
it was time to dust off my hat.
 
The dry cleaner next door more or less admitted that she knew what was going on, but said her parents owned the property and couldn’t speak English well enough to understand what to do.  I knew that was utter poppycock, so took a next, bigger step: contacting our sheriff.
 
Detectives there had also heard the rumors.  At the same time, I was able to get about three dozen neighbors to write letters about their concerns.  It took a while, but in less than a year, the massage parlor moved to a different part of town, in a lightly trafficked area rather than the main corridor where it had been located. 
 
Then, a couple of years after this, I spearheaded the move to get a nearby abandoned house condemned.
 
A fire department captain understood my concerns, and helped me bring this sorry house—uninhabited except by rats and other vermin for close to two decades—to the attention of county officials.  Consequently, the absentee owner was ordered to pay all sorts of government fines.  At about the same time, I went on a local TV news broadcast to complain about the piles of nasty trash the owner was now leaving in the driveway in his attempt to get all of his things out.  But shortly afterwards, he sold the place to some flippers, who redid it quickly in order to make a quick sale. 
 
This “project” took well over a year, but it was well worth it: the house always had good bones, and it’s now completely renovated.  It’s a pleasure to stroll by and see lights on; hear music playing, and know a family has brought it back to life.
 
I’m not wearing my neighborhood activist hat at the moment.   But because I’m always ready to do so, and because I also always feel compelled to try and make the world a better place, I’m pretty sure that there will always be a bit of Don Quixote in me. 
 
I certainly can’t undo every wrong, and I certainly can’t bring justice to the entire world. 
 
But, I can do my best to change a corner of a corner of a corner. 
 
Especially in these unsettling times, that’s good enough for me.
 
Have you ever tried to right a wrong?  I look forward to your stories and comments!  

Yup, I know we’re still a month shy from the season of ghosts, goblins and weird looking food whose primary colors are orange and black.   

But that doesn’t matter, because I’m feeling compelled right now to tell the story of our very own, neighborhood 
haunted house.

It’s just a 30-second walk from my place, but thankfully, because it’s on the opposite side of the street, I can only see it when I’m strolling down the block.  Still, every time I find myself walking by, even during the day, I’ll admit it: I get creepy-crawly chills. 

Okay, I’m not sure that there are actual spooks roaming its halls.  

Here’s what I do know.   

The house is completely abandoned, and has been for more than four years.  A forsaken red jeep sits in the driveway, nearly covered with crackly old pine needles.  Close by are some tall, completely dead trees that brush against the structure.  One of those tree’s branches intertwined with several electrical wires right above it.  Yikes.  And, that’s alongside some of the gnarliest, driest tumbleweeds I’ve ever seen.  There’s also a giant 1970s-era satellite dish, long rusted, and anchored not-so-jauntily to the garage roof. 

Here’s more about its festive exterior.

The outside walls are made entirely of wooden shingles; it also appears that this siding is 100 percent dry rotted and probably abuzz with zillions of happy, I’ll-never-go-hungry-again termites.  Adding to the creepiness is a fairly large hole, which immediate neighbors say has given easy entry to rats—not the cute little cartoon mice who sewed Cinderella’s gown, but rats—along with mold and mushrooms, to move in and flourish. 

And the story behind the walls?

Well, its elderly owner lives several hundred miles away and is using this place, or so he says, to store items that he plans to display in a museum dedicated to vintage computers.  (Can you say hoarder? In fact, a peek into the garage through its swollen plywood door shows that space literally packed floor to ceiling.)   

But here’s the most troubling thing: with the epic drought we’re experiencing here, our neighborhood haunted house is also a tinderbox just waiting for one bored teenager with a match.      

There’s a bit of good news.

Never one to not try to right a wrong in my big girl clown shoes, I have found a sympathetic person in our local government to help put the house in order.

I promised this person that I wouldn’t give any specifics about his or her identity or plan, because this person may be overstepping his or her bounds.  But this person strongly believes that it is important to do so because, this person says, the home’s extremely combustible interior and exterior represents a clear and present threat to all of the other 
homes nearby. 

So far, I’ve convinced nine neighbors to send in complaint forms to our county health department, which this person instructed me to do.  I’ve also posted the form to a town Facebook group I’m in, so folks I don’t know, but who might want to help, can join my little crusade.  

I felt powerful for only about a week, though, since my call to action hasn’t done much. 

Both the county code enforcement folks and the public health folks say that since no one lives here, and also because there are no broken windows, there’s not a whole lot they can do right now.  (However, a small victory: one tree—but not the most potentially dangerous one that hugs the electrical wires—has been cut down.  Too, a good amount of brush has been cleared since I began my squawking.) 

So, yes, with this person continuing to advise me in any way he or she can, I’ll keep working to ensure that this house is made even safer than it is right now. 

But I’ve realized there’s another reason I really, really want it cleaned up. 

It goes back to when I was a very little girl. 

In those days, I walked to school, first my grammar school and later, the middle school.  

To get to each of those destinations, though, I had to pass the house where The Jungle Lady lived.

I never learned her real name, but the moniker my brother and I gave her was a perfect fit. 

Only about four doors down from where I spent my entire childhood, her tired wooden residence seemed to have been haphazardly plopped down amidst a jumbled front yard overgrown with under-pruned trees and vines.  Worse, meandering over the worn picket fence and almost onto the sidewalk were a dozen out-of-control oleander bushes.  Their nasty, pointy leaves started an almost immediate rash if I accidentally happened to brush against them, and I soon learned that if someone chewed on those leaves, or a flower or stem, the consequences could, literally, be deadly    (http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/26/local/me-59440). 


In my mind—and I still think I’m right on this one—those oleanders were planted on purpose by The Jungle Lady to keep neighborhood kids out of her way.  Indeed, when I did get the occasional glimpse of the slow moving, grey haired woman who lived there, and who always seemed to be glaring at me, I was petrified... as were a whole lot of other children. 

In fact, I’m getting a queasy feeling in my gut, right now, just picturing her and where she lived. 

So perhaps, getting the creepy-crawly house that’s down my street in proper order might be serving as a method to vanquish a few of those old memories.

It’s also a proactive way to honor one of my core beliefs, which is this:  I can’t change the world.  But I can always try to do my best to change a corner of a corner of a corner of the world. 

So maybe, just maybe, I’ll eventually do a bit more than make our neighborhood haunted house safe.

I might be able to save one or two little kids from feeling scared and powerless when they have to pass that corner to get to school.  I could prevent a few nightmares, too.

And that, I know, is A Very Good Thing.    

What spooky houses, and the people who lived in them, do you remember from your childhood?  Since I can’t be the only one, I look forward to your stories!