It's misty and it's raining But I'm not one who does much complaining As the mist comes in, before the rain starts to fall I hold my head up and there are no stars Just the mist and the rain falls As a child, I would cry when the dark clouds, would roll by, And I didn't see a beautiful blue sky, But now I smile, No more tears, no more cries I realize how our trees grown so tall When our wonderful God, Lets his rain fall No matter how dark I realize God always does his work Sometimes it's cloudy And sometimes it's dark But God always does his part By Kim Green

By Bill Woods The period connecting the end of the old year and the start of the new one often prompts thinking about past events and what will come next. This December, my thinking began earlier after hearing an update on homelessness in this region by Josh Spring at the annual dinner of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. Spring, the Executive Director of the Coalition, didn't pull any punches as he depicted a worsening situation with more homeless families and individuals and an enormous need for affordable housing in this area. This unsugar coated presentation jolted me to reflect about how we have evolved to such a dismal situation both locally and nationally. When Applied Information Resources, working under the auspices of the newly formed Homeless Coalition, conducted the area's first homeless study in 1986, the immediate response of people of good will was that resources must be quickly found to end this crisis that was impacting the lives of so many men, women, and children. One year later when I attended an international conference on homelessness in Delhi, India, delegates from other countries expressed disbelief that a rich nation like the United States could have a homeless problem. Those who knew their history would cite the programs of "the New Deal" and the 1960s "War on Poverty." In looking back now at the1980s, I believe that we had already entered a time frame that I am now calling "the period of benign neglect." By 1986, Ronald Reagan was in his sixth year as President. He came into office with the slogan: "Government isn't the answer. Government is the problem." He vowed to cut costly and unnecessary federal programs, and to cut taxes in order to unleash America's entrepreneurial spirit. When AIR did its homeless study it cited that funding for various housing assistance programs shrank from $24.9 billion in 1981 to $7.8 billion in 1987. A complimentary ideology also emerged at that time that government assistance actually entrenched poverty and caused a culture of dependency. Along with that philosophy came the mistaken notion of wide spread welfare fraud and welfare queens driving to pick up their checks in Cadillacs. Thus, a powerful new political force grew up in the Reagan era to counter the long prevailing concept that bold government action could solve major problems and assist families and individuals to get back on their feet. I label the time from the 1980s to the present as a period of benign neglect, because the dismantling of the federal safety net has gone on steadily but slowly. The federal housing cuts and cuts in other federal assistance that began in the 1980s have continued with stops and starts along the way. During the almost four decades under review enough progressive and moderate members of Congress have prevented any cataclysmic assaults on the safety net, and for sixteen of the thirty eight years, a Democrat has served as President. The new conservatism, however, subtly infiltrated the thinking of some Democratic leaders including Bill Clinton. As President, Clinton signed into law in 1996 a more punitive and limited welfare law that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children- a long accepted entitlement program. Meanwhile, states like Ohio witnessed the cutting or elimination of anti-poverty programs by their legislatures. Groups such as the Homeless Coalition and other advocates for the poor fought against this continual whittling away of funding for affordable housing and other safety net programs, but this ongoing battle with its stalemates and losses became almost numbing. Nobody did a very good job of keeping tabs on how these steady losses were mounting up and having a greater impact at the local level. This article has focused on one major factor that has led to the homeless situation that Josh Spring described at the Coalition's annual dinner. A complete picture would include other factors such as the impact of "big money" on the political process at all levels, the change to a global economy, and a culture that now emphasizes individualism, corporate greed, and polarized groups rather than any emphasis on "we the people." These factors and others would need to be blended into a complete story about how we became mired in this period of benign neglect. Perhaps the election and Presidency of Donald Trump serve as a wake up call to jolt us into acknowledging the critical problems that have slowly grown to gargantuan size over time. With democracy and most of our institutions and government programs now in jeopardy, maybe we will also be able to recognize that a city and a nation that can accept growing poverty and economic inequality no longer deserves to be called "great."

By Robert Park It’s really very simple. The Democrats announce that two can play this disgusting game (shutting down our government that we pay for and that should be doing things we need, you know, like inspecting food supplies, protecting and fixing the environment, enforcing labor laws and protections, prosecuting discrimination, collecting taxes owed by the super-rich, making climate-change resilient infrastructure…). The Democrats (not known for backbone) would explain: we will not vote for any Budget that does not establish Medicare-for-All immediately. Period. And then they go home and wait. Catch-up with the locals, read some good books, attend rallies and picket lines. With a clear commitment for universal, publicly funded health care (like almost all modern countries already have), the details could then be negotiated: phase-in Medicare coverage by lowering the entry age each year by 5 years. If its 65 now, a year from now it’s 60; 5 years from now it’s 40. Includes dental and vision. Funds transition programs that liberate nurses working for insurance companies and gets them back into a health care system that works well for the people. Instead of Nancy Pelosi smiling and promising bipartisanism, she needs to cut off the corporate sugar daddies and learn how to street fight for us. Do the right things and small donations will follow, in the millions. Instead of projecting niceness, we need to hear from her and her colleagues sarcasm, ridicule and honesty. Tell the GOP to take his wall and shove it. It would help a lot if the Dems would explain the origins of the immigration crisis: the war on drugs and corporate super-exploitation in Central America by some of the Dems’ biggest contributors. These are not issues to smile about, they are life-and-death propositions that the American people are already on top of or ready to be.

By Josh Spring In 2006 the musician John Mayer released a song which included the following lyrics: “…Now we see everything that’s going wrong With the world and those who lead it…” and “…To bring our neighbors home from war they would have never missed a Christmas No more ribbons on their door And when you trust your television What you get is what you got Cause when they own the information, oh They can bend it all they want” These lyrics are pretty good; identifying what’s wrong and who’s leading the wrong, ending war and not trusting mass media. But the rest of the lyrics of this song mirror a major problem among so many groups of people: “…With the world and those who lead it We just feel like we don’t have the means To rise above and beat it So we keep waiting (waiting) Waiting on the world to change…” and “It’s hard to beat the system When we’re standing at a distance So we keep waiting (waiting) Waiting on the world to change” and “Now if we had the power To bring our neighbors home from war… It’s not that we don’t care We just know that the fight ain’t fair So we keep waiting (waiting) Waiting on the world to change” What the hell! You know the problems, you know the problems need to be ended, but your waiting on things to change? He’s right that we may not yet have the “means to rise above and beat it” and that “It’s hard to beat the system when we’re standing at a distance” and that the “fight ain’t fair”. Duh, yes these are true statements. But these are not reasons to wait. In fact there are no reasons to wait on making change. If we don’t currently have the “means” then we have to make the means. So we have to strategize, execute, re-evaluate and organize people. The “means” are never going to magically appear or be given to us, we make them, really, as we hone ourselves, we are them. The best way to not be “standing at a distance” is to move forward, into the fray; strategically ignite the fray. And about the fight not being fair; yes the majority of resources are controlled by the few extremely wealthy people and companies and the very wealthy who envy them, but we have a whole lot more people than they do. I know some reading this may be thinking, “…oh don’t make it an ‘us and them’ thing.” It already is an “us and them” thing and allowing ourselves to be blinded by faux warm and fuzzies about everyone just needing to work together keeps poverty and oppression well fed. Instead we need to own the fact that we have many, many people and organizing our collective strength is how we recover the necessary resources to ensure just opportunity for healthy life. At the end of the song, Mayer sings: “One day our generation Is gonna rule the population So we keep waiting (waiting) Waiting on the world to change…” Perhaps he is saying he believes that once his generation “rule[s] the population” change will happen, so he and his friends are just “waiting” for that day. If we claim we are “waiting” on something to change the world or we are “waiting” on our having enough power to change the world, really we are just utilizing the word “wait” to act as if care, but the timing just isn’t right yet. This is faith without works. Having faith things will change, even having faith we will lead such a change, but doing nothing about it keeps the paths to destruction well-established. We should have faith justice will rule, but the faith is born in working to eliminate the paths to destruction and concurrently establish justice. We aren’t waiting.

By David McCane I became homeless back in 2004-5. Been homeless for 13 years, 4 months, 3 weeks until last year when I got my place. I was on the streets in Mansfield too. I left here for about a year and three months but I realized I needed help. I got out of jail, came back here, got together with Alphonse who helped me get connected with Greater Cincinnati Behavioral (GCB) to work with caseworkers and get housing. He told me I had to give 110% and then the caseworkers would give 110%, so I did. I did volunteer work and I love it. My caseworkers got me on Social Security Income. They set up appointments with me, help me set goals, and they’re really there for me. They’ve been a lot better than other places. I finally found people who listen to me and help me with my problems. They make sure I stay out of trouble. GCB really works with me. They helped me get an apartment. When I had an apartment, I gave it up to my friends who had kids because they needed somewhere to live. I didn’t mind being on the streets. The caseworkers helped me stay on the right path. They helped me get into college and I’m almost there. Daulton King helped me out when I needed someone to talk to about apartment situations, or just what was on my mind. He gave me a lot of good advice and told me to keep my head up and stay strong. He’s the one who helped me get into Streetvibes in the first place. I’m going to Cincinnati State for culinary arts and I’m working on getting my license and a car. I’m starting this semester and just got my uniform. On the 7th, I’ll get a set of knives to complete the chef’s uniform. I’d really like to do cooking and baking if possible. I have my own recipes and have my own signature dishes. A friend of mine let me stay with him until he got kicked out and I used to cook for him. I did a lot of experiments with steak and pork and that’s when I realized how much I liked it. I got praise from a pastor I knew up there. I’m trying to come up with new recipes with chicken right now. I like to use different ingredients that you don’t expect, like cinnamon and garlic Crisco together. I also like doing heritage cooking since I am part Irish, German, Scottish, and Cherokee. I like to mix them all together, like a main dish from Irish cooking and a side dish from Native American cooking. Cooking wasn’t my only option, but Cinci State doesn’t have a Masonair program for construction. I am somewhat qualified in masonry, but I need to finish scaffolding. I’d like to be a fully certified mason as well. I also do landscaping and I’m a masseuse. If it wasn’t for the people at the Homeless Coalition—including the people at Streetvibes—I would still be on the streets and I wouldn’t be going to college. I’ve had my place for a year and one month and I plan to keep it. The PATH team really worked with me and I got into XL, which pays half of my rent. The same landlord has a two-bedroom place in Price Hill, which would be good. I’ve been trying to tell other people that they should also try to get housing here but you have to give 110%.

By Josh Spring If you flip off the lights in a room, walk through the room and run into a pole, do you ask what happened? Probably not, because you know what happened. If you do the same thing the next day, do you ask what happened that time? Nope. If you fill a glass with water and then dump it on your head, do you ask why you are wet? What about if you turn a stove burner on and hold your hand on it, do you wonder why your hand hurts? If you dump a bucket of dirt on someone else, do you ask them why they are so dirty? No, probably not. Outside of mental health decompensation, none of this makes any sense. You don’t ask why these things are happening because you already know the answer, and you know how to prevent them from happening again. If you heard a weather report which called for rain and you left the windows of your car (if you have one) open and later came out to find a soaked seat, would you try to figure out how your seat got wet? Would you call your friends together to study how rain gets from outside a car to inside a car and on a seat? Would you re-listen to the weather report and try to figure out how better to understand what the report meant? No, you would express frustration at having left the window open, especially when you knew rain was predicted, you would try to dry your seat and commit to not leaving the window open again. If you park that same car, get out to walk into the office and someone hollers at you that your left your lights on, likely you would say thanks and then turn around and turn your lights off. Why? Because you know if you leave them on it is likely your battery will lose power and your won’t be able to start your car when you return. You don’t wait for proof that this will happen because logic dictates it will, you don’t want to risk it and likely past experience tells you choosing to not put in the effort to walk back and turn off the lights will result in more problems in the future. So why when it comes to much more important decisions do we very often chose to not follow basic common sense? As a society, city and county we invest millions of dollars in luxury housing, give tax abatements to companies that displace people from their homes, allow landlords to evict without just cause, don’t require companies pay a living wage, subsidize tourist bars and shops that drive out neighborhood-serving businesses and applaud the removal of people with lower incomes from neighborhoods as revitalization and then act surprised when housing instability and homelessness increase. We enact policies that support the depletion of affordable housing and then say we are not sure why we have homelessness to the extent we do and so we must study the problem more and then perhaps temporarily pilot possible solutions. Maybe we don’t yet have the right people in the room to figure out what is going on or maybe there is some best practice model we haven’t considered. Give me a break. If you have a house and you invite your friends over to be entertained by shooting off fireworks in the living room and your house catches fire and you and your friends stand outside watching, debating how best to use the garden hose to decrease the fire when you should be calling the fire department and your house burns down, again outside of some extreme circumstances, you don’t get to say you didn’t know what to do. If you get a new house and this time you only use small fireworks inside, you don’t get congratulated for improving. You don’t get to call people in to do a study to try to figure out how to prevent fires in your home, because the answer is always going to be that you must stop the activity that is causing the fires in the first place. These are all just little analogies, but what if people are trapped in the house and can’t get out of the fire? In 2017, in Hamilton County, least 137 people suffering from the effects of homelessness died.

By Morgan Mitchell Many people dream of making a difference with their lives. In America, we are told that the best way to make a difference and create change is to enter politics. Politicians build platforms on creating change and promise to do so--but only if they get elected first! That’s where political organizers come in. Political organizers are usually in their twenties, fresh out of college and eager to pursue their dream of making a difference. They’re the ones knocking on doors, calling voters, registering people to vote, texting voters, and recruiting volunteers to help. This is the dirty work that isn’t normally talked about when discussing the glitz and glamour of working in politics. Yet it is arguably the most crucial work, without political organizers (or campaign workers if they are working for a specific candidate) these candidates and political parties wouldn’t have any momentum. Unfortunately, political organizers are exploited for their labor, especially by the party that claims to have the working class’ best interest in mind: Democrats. Political organizers for progressive non-profits and campaign workers for Democratic candidates often work 9am-12am, seven days a week. They are not paid overtime, are very rarely given benefits, rarely make a living wage, are not allowed to take days off, are given weekly or daily quotas that are nearly impossible to meet, and more often than not are fire-at-will employees (meaning they can be fired at any moment with no warning and without explanation). Many organizers aren’t even aware that their horrific working conditions are exploitation because campaign managers and non-profit state directors know what language to use to gaslight and blind political organizers to their exploitation. Common phrases organizers will hear from their bosses are: “Not everyone is cut out for this kind of work,” or “this is what you’re passionate about so it doesn’t feel like work,” or “this is necessary in order for us to win the election,” or “you were warned about this in your interview” or “this is for a good cause,” as if a cause that exploits labor can ever be considered “good.” Organizers are made to feel special, like superhero martyrs sacrificing themselves for the greater good. When in reality, no one is cut out to be exploited and work over 40 hours a week. Unions fought for 40 hour work weeks because studies show that working over 40 hours has negative effects on both employees and consequently the organization or company they are working for. Ihaab Syed, Secretary of the Campaign Workers Guild, a union recently formed by former campaign workers that fights for the rights of campaign political organizers, told Street Vibes that campaign workers need to reject the premise that overworking yourself and allowing yourself to be exploited is the path to victory for the causes that you care about. “It’s not fair to ask people to work past their breaking point.” By saying that people who are passionate about their job shouldn’t feel exploited, organizers’ employers are making them feel separated from the rest of the working class they belong to, above them in a sense. The exploited factory workers aren’t passionate about their work so that’s why it’s wrong to exploit them, right? Not necessarily, one could love their factory job, but still deserve a living wage and overtime. Syed also noted that if this kind of work is something you are passionate about, you should find a way to make it sustainable so you don’t have to change careers after experiencing burn-out. Full-time organizers who pursue this as a career are usually salary workers, meaning they aren’t paid hourly and don’t clock in or out. That seems convenient in theory, no matter what--you get paid for 40 hours a week. But exemption laws allow these workers to get exploited and work way over 40 hours and not get paid for it, all legally. At an event titled “Lunch and Learn” held at the University of Cincinnati’s Women’s Center on September 20th, when asked how to avoid exploitation in a field that regularly exploits workers, Kelly Freeman, Central/Southern Ohio Organizer for NARAL Pro-Ohio, and Stephanie Kollmann Baker, Senior Field Manager at Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, said that one has to just get lucky with who their boss is and hope they are not allowing their employees to work over eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. That is hardly ever the case. If employers or the law aren’t going to help fight back against this exploitation, what is? Unionizing. The Campaign Workers Guild is working with campaigns trying to do just that. Their website says, “We are campaign workers from across the United States who are committed to improving our work conditions, empowering organizers, and promoting healthy career longevity The Campaign Workers Guild works to improve pay, create processes to prevent and report sexual harassment, and fight for “the basic labor protections that all workers deserve.” Their end goal is for political campaign organizers is for their work to be fairly compensated, their experience properly valued, and their rights adequately protected. “Until then, we organize.” The Campaign Workers Guild has unionized over 23 campaigns, including the Ohio Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, the Campaign for Ohio. On top of supporting unions like The Campaign Workers Guild, Democrats must also focus on electing more working class people into Congress and working on campaign finance reform. Right now according to data collected by Vox, “workers make up less than three percent of the average state legislature and the average member of Congress spent less than two percent of his or her entire pre-congressional career doing the kinds of jobs most Americans go to every day.” This means that a vast majority of the candidates exploiting their workers have never been in their shoes and studies show these Democrats won’t vote or draft legislation to help the workers that are the reason they got elected. Syed said that there is a lot of hypocrisy in political workplaces where they say they fight for 15 dollars an hour and healthcare for all, but then don’t give that to their workers. Syed mentioned that the Ohio Democratic Party hired Republican lawyers that specialize in “union avoidance,” which according to Syed is the polite term for union busting, to represent them at bargaining meetings. Only recently did the Democratic National Committee finally start paying their interns after it was reported that Republicans are more likely to do so. This doesn’t mean that Republicans are the party for the working class, their legislation and voting records say quite the opposite. Republicans just have donations from special interest groups such as the NRA that give more than enough funds to pay their interns. Fighting for campaign finance reform and publicly funded campaigns will even out the playing field between the two parties and there will be less pressure to work twice the amount of hours as Republicans in order to match their visibility bought with hundreds of advertisements. Right now, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are enemies to the working class and until campaigns and political nonprofits stop exploiting their workers, Democrats can’t claim to be “progressive” or the party the working class can believe in. With 2020 elections just around the corner, Syed says campaign workers need allies on the outside who help push for them and support them emotionally and the best way to support campaign workers is to let them know unions exist that can and will represent them, they don’t have to be afraid to stand up for their rights and working conditions they want to see. Remind them It’s illegal to be retaliated against for trying to form a union at your workplace and back them up with whatever they decide to do. United we bargain, divided we beg.

By Brian Taylor Congregation Beth Adam, in collaboration with the Jewish Community Relations Council, held a special event November 4 to commemorate the lives of 11 people killed October 27, in an anti-Semitic attack on Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The meeting -- preceded two days earlier by a special service that drew hundreds -- was attended by 150 people from various religious and ethnic communities throughout the city. Dozens of children of the Beth Adam congregation greeted participants before leaving to attend a separate program focussed on handling grief and sadness, helping others in pain and changing the world for the better. They also made butterflies intended to be sent to congregants at Tree of Life. Robert Barr, founding Rabbi at Beth Adam, moderated the event and gave opening remarks to the gathering. “The world is reeling from the murder of 11 innocents in Pittsburgh simply because they were Jewish.” He noted that in addition to his tie with Tree of Life as a rabbi, he had a very personal connection as part of his family lives in Pittsburgh and specifically attend the embattled synagogue located in Squirrel Hill. After seeing a video presentation coming out o the massacre, he reached out to Tree of Life congregants, Bob and Judy Danenberg to see if he could replay the video to his congregation. They agreed but also volunteered to travel into town to participate in the November 4 event. Bob Danenberg, a Tree of Life member for 35 years, explained that 15,000 people — 30% of Pittsburgh’s Jewish population — reside in Squirrel Hill. He described the thriving community and the close-knit connections of families in the area. “This is of the worst attacks in the history of the Republic…. The shooter had an AR 15 assault rifle and 3 Gloc 57 handguns. He used all of them during the attack and he had a shotgun in the car.” “Many of the bodies,” Danenberg added, “were not immediately identifiable” after the shootings. According to the Jewish Chronicle, the alleged shooter, Robert Bowers (46), posted threats against Jews and immigrants on social media prior to the attack. Judy Danenberg began by reading off the names of those killed. They included: Joyce Fienberg (75), Richard Gottfried (65), Rose Mallinger (97), Jerry Rabinowitz (69), Cecil Rosenthal (59), David Rosenthal (54), Bernice Simon (84), Sylvan Simon (86), Daniel Stein (71), Melvin Wax (87), and Irving Younger (69). She told a story about each of them, highlighting who they were and their contributions to synagogue and to her, personally. She also made mention and honored the 6 people injured during the attack, including 2 congregants and 4 police officers. “The JCC (Jewish Community Center) has become a place to mourn the massacre,” she noted as she described how the incident has lead many from the community to pull together and rejoin the synagogue and the three congregations it houses. Danenberg ended her remarks in a spirited proclamation that “Through all of this WE — people of all walks — will become stronger, tighter than we have ever been.” “This is a wake up call,” Bob Danenberg said. “This can’t be sugar coated. We think it can’t happen to us. It can.” “What do we do now?” he asked. “We can’t let hatred dominate. We have to take measurable and lawful actions to counteract hatred and anti-Semitism. Take some form of action today!” he ended. Beth Adam organized an open discussion period, in which people present raised questions about self defense and preparedness, discussed the current political and social climate as related to anti-Semitism, and talked about the links between this attack and other attacks against Black people and immigrants. Several asked questions about the efforts to repair the synagogue. Messages of solidarity came from Hindu and Muslim individuals as well as anti-police brutality activists. “This has been a week of profound darkness,” Brian Jaffe of the Jewish Foundation, told the meeting. But he reflected on the broad international solidarity that continues to come in and pointed out that “nearly every synagogue and Jewish community in the country experienced an underestimation of support.” “Take what you’ve heard, take what you’ve learned today and turn it into action,” urged Robert Barr in closing the event.

By Daulton King Residents of Alms Hill Apartments enjoyed a Halloween Celebration put on by the Alms Residents’ Association on Monday, October 29th. The Alms Hill Apartments contains 200 units of HUD subsidized apartments that have been at risk of closure multiple times in the last 5 years. Residents have worked hard and partnered with the Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and Legal Aid Society to combat slumlords and HUD to keep their homes open and affordable. The Alms Halloween Celebration proved to be a timely event, not just because of the 31st around the corner, but because on Tuesday, October 30th new ownership took over the Alms. The new owners, Related Affordable, have promised to keep the building well-maintained and affordable while completing millions of dollars in renovations for the residents. Kimetta Ann Carter, Public Relations and Advocate for The Alms Residents’ Association expressed “We happily welcome Related Affordable. We anticipate great results and appreciate them stepping up to the plate”. Residents have been long fighting for this sustainable solution to their housing insecurity. Stephanie Moes from Legal Aid society shared “The residents have fought hard to preserve and improve housing at the Alms and Avondale properties for the last three years. With Related acquiring the properties, we hope that they will finally have an owner ready to join them in their efforts to make these properties premier affordable housing in our community.” The Alms Residents’ Association, Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, and The Cincinnati Homeless Coalition are all optimistic regarding the future of the Alms.

By Dr. Mark Mussman Hostile Design is a way to keep people from doing normal things that people would do – like sit, or lay down. These design elements are used throughout the urban landscape to exclude people from private and public spaces. Hostile Design does not include private security forces, CCV cameras, or other elements that require human interaction. But the signs that stand in proxy for security forces can be considered hostile design. Walking through Over-the-Rhine and Downtown Cincinnati, I was able to capture several forms of hostile design. The most common element that I saw prohibits people from laying down. Whether it be a bench with a bar in the middle, as you see in Washington Park, or it be a circular bench set up, seen in a few places downtown, it’s clear that laying down is strictly prohibited. While this may make sense at bus stops, what does it mean when you cannot lay down in a park? Would those people who had a vision for a great city park agree with the mentality to make it as inhospitable as possible? I believe parks were created and designed for a respite from the hustle and bustle of city life. Now, instead of placing the bar in the middle of the bench, they make the benches too short to lay on, such as the bus shelters, including Government Square. Another common element stops people from sitting at all. This could be as simple as placing a flower pot on an unused stairway, as seen on 14th Street in Over-the-Rhine, or it could be a slight slope on ledges that would typically be used for sitting. The slight slope makes it impossible to lay down, but it also makes your legs fall asleep if you sit on it for any length of time. Spikes and ridges may be the most shocking type of hostile design, but little fences, such as the one around the entire perimeter of Washinton Park are just as offensive. The ridges around the federal courthouse prevent people from sitting on their wall. The ridged metal in front of Holtman’s Donuts stops people, who may be waiting on a bus there, from having a comfortable place to sit. The recent removal of many of the bus benches throughout the city highlights the lack of value we put into our public transit system. This is to contrast with the privatization of public spaces, like alleys and sidewalks, in the area. While people on fixed and low incomes are struggling to stand waiting for the bus, a few feet away restaurant outcroppings take up the majority of the sidewalk. People sitting, enjoying their expensive meals can enjoy the sidewalk space, but it is otherwise an offense to sit on the sidewalk. I have seen police officers drive up in their cruisers and tell people they cannot have their legs on the sidewalk, when they were sitting on the church steps. Threats of tickets and even arrest have been made, but restaurants claim several feet of the sidewalk making it very difficult to navigate your way down the street with a family or in a wheelchair, in order to serve alcohol on the sidewalk. These double standards need to stop. I was first made aware of hostile design several years ago when I was in Santa Cruz, California. The University of California at Santa Cruz was designed to prevent students from engaging in political protests and marches. The winding walkways and meeting spaces were specifically engineered to prevent an uprising. This was done in the wake of student organizing in the 1960’s. UC Santa Cruz has become the model for student political suppression and campus design. Last year, on a trip to Santa Cruz, I was hoping to find something called a “mosquito box.” You might be fooled into thinking that a mosquito box would be used to fight mosquitos – a well-known pest. Unfortunately, it is much more nefarious than that. If you’ve been in gentrifying areas, such as Walnut Hills or Over-the-Rhine, you might be surprised to hear classical music being blasted on the outside of buildings. This is an attempt to push out “undesirable” people from the area. This is also done at Washington Park and the Public Library downtown. I guess the thinking is that people don’t want to hear classical music, so they will move somewhere else. This is a type of mosquito box, but not the most egregious. We have a true mosquito box here in Over-the-Rhine. On the side of Below Zero Lounge, there is a security camera and a mosquito box. Every time you walk by it announces “Warning, you are being videotaped” and gives off a high pitch noise. The high pitch noise is the mosquito box – while it does nothing to repel mosquitos, it causes headaches and forces people to leave the area. Young people are most susceptible to high pitch sounds, so they are more affected by it. We should consider what it means to be a community and to be inclusive. Does preventing people from laying down solve our housing crisis? Does preventing people from sitting at all give the message that people are “blight” and should not be here? Let’s be honest with ourselves – this isn’t about preventing crime, this is about our collective denial and our inability to find solutions to hard problems. Next week, I hope to write about the Impaction Ordinance, which I believe is the policy version of hostile design. In the meantime, if you want to see some of this for yourself, schedule a walking tour with the Homeless Coalition. Originally Published in Vol. 20, Issue 37 (May 19th - June 1st 2017)

By Jim Luken I admit it. I have something of a teenage crush on Green Party Candidate Jill Stein. I guess a 72 year­ old can still feel like a teen. Jill is definitely a babe, but there are many things about Dr. Stein that are far more interesting to me than her physical attractiveness. • She loves Cincinnati I had a semi­-exclusive interview with Stein five weeks ago at the OM Cafe in Clifton. Now, she had come back to Cincinnati on the afternoon before Labor Day, speaking for a Green Party event at Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park. With about 150 enthusiasts in attendance, she spoke (unscripted) for 53 minutes then answered a series of questions, then generously got up close and personal, doing dozens of “selfies” with her excited fangirls and fanboys (including yours truly. See photo). Her comfort level with people seems incredibly genuine and heartfelt, and this from a rising political “star” with so many impingements on her time, and so hectic a schedule. One person asked her why she had come to Cincinnati twice. She responded, “I really like your city, this beautiful park, and knowing that Cincinnati sits on the dividing line between the North and the South, between east and west.” • She is taking up where Bernie Sanders left off Stein began her talk by referring to the sadness and feelings of abandonment felt by so many of the people who had invested time, money, and deeply felt energy in the Sanders campaign. She said she felt our pain. Then she turned on the positive juices. “It feels as if we are bringing together the perfect ingredients here in this perfect political storm for revolutionary change. It feels like we have found each other in the nightmare of an election, in this disaster of an economy. In this world of endless war, we the people who have been thrown under the bus are finding each other. “It feels like a family,” she continued, “and I gotta say it feels like everybody here is my best friend who I have been looking for my whole life...I just thank you from the bottom of my heart.” It felt that we to me: that I was her best friend. After Bernie deserted me, Jill became my best political friend. I'm certain that most everybody at the event had a similar amazing feeling set. We weren't just her supporters. We were her family! Earlier, the Green party candidate for Senate in Ohio, machinist Joe DeMare, informed the crowd that, following Hillary's convention victory, Bernie had been offered the opportunity to head the Green Party ticket. And that Jill Stein had been ready to step down as its Presidential candidate. “But Bernie declined to follow this revolutionary path,” DeMare said. This drew “Boos” from the audience. “I'm supporting everything Jill says,“ DeMare gushed, “because she's right!” Jill Stein and the Green Party's positions fall pretty much in line with those spelled out in the Sanders Campaign, although Jill often pushes harder in certain areas. Both he and she stand against voter ID cards, for, example, but Stein advocates automatic voter registration when a person turns 18. Jill is for term limits for nationally elected officials. Bernie is against term limits. At this post­-convention point in time, the main difference between the two is a huge one. Jill Stein is promising to continue the revolutionary surge. While Bernie, at this writing, is in New Hampshire campaigning for Hillary, whose corporate ties and warmongering he had challenged again and again during the primaries. • She is right on every issue On Labor Day, Stein made clear that “the only real revolution occurs from the bottom up.” She insisted that “this moment is ripe for revolutionary change.” And she clearly believes such change is possible. Stein pointed out that about 23 million voters lean Democratic, no matter what. And 23 million others favor the Republican agenda. “This leaves about 43million voters who are ready for something different than the two party corporate system offers.” She ran off a list of problems to be solved, followed by common sense ways of solving them.Here are a few of those ideas. 1. Student Debt: “There is only one place to put your vote [referring to herself]; there is only one candidate who will cancel student debt, and bail out the students like we bailed out Wall Street. It's about time to bail out the victims of waste, fraud and abuse instead of the perpetrators.” Such a bailout would cost the taxpayers, many trillions less that the 2009 bank/Wall Street/Insurance company bailout. 2. Free Public Universities: “College tuition is free in the public universities of all other industrialized countries.” [except us] “It has been proven that there is a sevenfold return when a country invests in higher education.” 3. War: All the other countries of the world have 30 overseas military bases. We have 1000. This is what a dying empire looks like.”...”We didn't get rid of Al Qaeda; we created ISIS.”... “We don't need your friggan war. We need to stop bombing other countries.” 4. The health care system: “I used to say I was practicing medicine. Now I say I'm practicing political medicine. I used to give people pills and then push them out the door and into the things that were making them sick, the food system, the dirty air, the for profit medical system.” • At 66, candidate Jill Stein exhibits an incredible calmness and focus. Her demeanor is sweet but strong. With every sentence that comes out of her mouth, she exudes confidence, clarity, integrity, passion, but all with an incredible, heartfelt energy and compassion. Be honest now. How many politicians make you feel loved? • Finally Jill was born on my birthday I guess this means that astrologically, we have similar “profiles.” Since she is a Taurus, she can be bullheaded, as can I. We are different ages, so the planets would have been in a somewhat different alignment when she was born. Nonetheless I find it cool that this enormously attractive political persona would have shown up on my political horizons 66 years later to the day. Will I vote for her? Absolutely. Do I care that I could be blamed for a 'Trump victory just as I was blamed when Gore lost to Bush in 2000, because people like me voted for Ralph Nader. As Joe DeMare pointed out on Sunday, Gore didn't lose the election to Bush. He won the popular vote in Florida, and thus won the election. He and the democrats simply caved, and let the Supreme Court decide a states'­rights issue. Jill Stein will not cause Hillary to lose to Trump. If that unlikelihood should happen, it will be Hillary's fault for failing to prove that she is the better candidate. And none of that changes the reality that Jill Stein, my not­-so-­secret heartthrob, would make the best President of the United States at this revolutionary moment. Jill, you rock! [Editor’s note: The Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition does not endorse political candidates.]