more on homelessness

[john engle]

raffi,

this is great stuff! nice work and thanks for taking the time to share it.

appreciatively,

john



http://circlesofchange.com participatory learning & leadership in Haiti
http://johnengle.net Open Space facilitation

email: john at johnengle.net
telephone: 202-236-6532

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>From: Raffi Aftandelian <raffi at bk.ru>
>Reply-To: Raffi Aftandelian <raffi at bk.ru>
>To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
>Subject: more on homelessness
>Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 13:57:01 +0400
>
>Dear colleagues,
>I just wanted to share a few thoughts from a second 4 hour OST meeting
>on homelessness simply titled: "Government services, nonprofit
>organizations, and homeless people."
>
>We had worked carefully with the City of Moscow Social Welfare
>Department's Homeless people services division to come up with a good
>title. But they changed it at the last moment.
>
>Fine enough. We had some 50 people: from nonprofits, heads of
>municipal shelters, from local press, a TV station shooting a
>homelessness documentary, and, uh 3-4 homeless people.
>
>That's just where we are in the dialog right now that homeless people
>choose not to come to planning meetings, seeing little point. It's a
>slow process.
>
>All the usual miracles happened: wonderful contacts, great
>conversation, new ideas.
>
>Homeless shelter heads publicly said that they now would take in *any*
>homeless person, not just one who is originally from Moscow. This rule
>essentially meant the city had/has been not dealing with the problem
>head-on because Moscow as the most resource-rich city in Russia has a
>huge number of non-Muscovite homeless people.
>
>Time will tell if this public announcement will come to fruition.
>
>Marina Perminova, of the Catholic charity Caritas, co-led it with me.
>She highlighted how we are first of all humans, not civil servants,
>homeless people, etc. It was a simple, fundamental way of setting the
>tone.
>
>Watch this space for more about Marina! I am really excited about
>working with her.
>
>At the closing, several people spoke about how they'd had enough talk,
>they wanted action. And I remembered how I think it was you, Harrison,
>you talked about how OS is action planning all the time. Funny how we
>don't always see that.
>
>Participants saw value in the conversation and they saw that something
>happened there-- again-- that is different from what they usually do.
>
>It is good that the head of homeless services for Moscow is someone
>who seems really open and receptive. This is in large part thanks to
>Marina's efforts in bringing Moscow social welfare department people
>to Paris through Caritas. To see and experience firsthand how
>homelessness is worked with elsewhere opened their eyes.
>
>The bureaucrats shifted into the realm of the possible?
>
>Some people were moved just to see that there are people who actually
>*care* about the issue of homelessness. They had no idea that the
>compassion radius was that big!
>
>And much work lies ahead: most of the homeless people in the closing
>circle chose to stand outside the circle nor say anything. I struggled
>with asking them to join the circle. Would that be too much of an
>intervention as a faciliator?
>
>What's important, though, that in contrast to the previous meeting they
>stayed until the end.
>
>warmly,
>raffi
>
>
>
>                           mailto:raffi at bk.ru
>
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