Houseless Movement Charity

Through a tremendous amount of determination and resilience of many people, we are thrilled to announce the opening of the Bad Dog Factory in Akron Ohio. It is a makerspace dedicated to the houseless community.
Learn more here:

Bad Dog Factory Kick-off | HOUSELESS MOVEMENT CHARITY (Powered by Donorbox) BAD DOG FACTORY IS OFFICIALLY OPEN!Donate $35 or more in the next two weeks and get a free Bad Dog Factory t-shirt made by the Bad Dog Factory crew. (offer ends Tuesday, September 10, 2024).With a tremendous amount of help and resilience, I am thr...

My main Facebook profile has been permanently banned because I was showing the results of testing illicit substances in the homeless community. The results were tragically bad. I thought it might be good for the community to know this reality. Apparently I was wrong. We should not discuss the horrors of modern America. There is nothing to see here. Everything is fine.

This account was also banned for a time. I can’t be sure how long it will last.

If you are interested in hearing about my work in the homeless community please subscribe to my Substack. That’s where I’ll be discussing these issues.

https://nomadicspirit.substack.com/

I love you and am so thankful for you.

Sage’s Substack | Sage Lewis | Substack This is about my physical, emotional and spiritual journey trying to help the mostly severely homeless people in our community. Click to read Sage’s Substack, by Sage Lewis, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

I'm disappointed in myself.

I think that's how I feel about my accomplishments in helping Akron's homeless people.

I just haven't measured up. I keep losing. I can't seem to make it clear enough to anyone in power that there are people without shelter or a place to sleep.

These people, these human beings, these American citizens, have been kicked out of all the other shelters in Akron. They have been kicked out of every housing program available. They have nowhere to turn. That's why they are coming to me for tents.

It's not because I'm offering some luxurious glamping experience. (Although, that seems to be what the city thinks.)

They are begging me for tents because they have nowhere else to sleep. A tent blocks wind, rain and snow. It's a simple, yet highly effective solution to providing shelter to a human being.

I dare you to go camping in March or October without a tent or a tarp. If you don't die from exposure you likely will suffer from hyperthermia. The CDC says hypothermia "can occur even at cool temperatures (above 40°F) if a person becomes chilled from rain, sweat, or submersion in cold water.

Do you remember that time I told you how someone poured a bucket of ice-cold water in the middle of winter on Rob Pierce? He had no shelter or dry clothes at the time, and it was the middle of the night with nowhere to go. The city had shut down my camp when that happened to him.

So, last week, Summit County Pleas Court sent me, our church, and our charity a bill for $485 for court costs after the city put a permanent injunction on me to never put a tent on my private land for as long as I live (and also as long as anyone lives, because the injunction runs with the land).

But that was good news. Because their initial injunction wanted to hold ANYONE in contempt of this order if I ever gave anyone a tent anywhere in Akron. "Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with them." That's how they wrote it.

My attorney, Louicile Powers, thankfully, got rid of that madness. I'm "just" left with never being able to put a tent on my own property for all of eternity.

I don't know if this moves you to help with these court costs. But if it does you can do so here:
https://donorbox.org/help-with-court-costs

I'm not going to ask my family to pay for these. What I don't raise here, I'll raise selling plasma. I ask my family for too much already.

Thank you!

In addition to our community cleanup job program, we also have a bicycle repair program.

This is Darren Anderson, he goes by DNA. He's standing next to a bike that was donated to us that he fixed up.

He put new tubes in the tires, fixed the gear shifting mechanism, and got the brakes working.

I paid him $20 to do the repair work.

He really likes doing this work. I could either sell this bike to someone who has cash or have them work the bike off with other jobs. (There is very little cash in the homeless community, but there are a lot of people willing to work for things they need.)

After I quit restaurant work in my 20s, I never went back to a "real" job again. I much prefer working for myself. I think many homeless people feel the same way.

I am trying to show my homeless friends how they can generate money as entrepreneurs. Some of them are doing it already. They scrap metal and sell stuff on Facebook Marketplace. I'm just trying to expand that thinking.

Bicycle repair is definitely a needed service in low-income communities. Many people in Akron don't have a license or car, so they rely on the bus, walking, or bicycles.

Bicycles are probably the most stolen items in the homeless community after phones. Both of these items are highly valuable because they are so useful.

(Phone repair is also on my mind as a possible program.)

If you find these empowering programs inspiring, we can definitely use your help.

We need bicycle parts such as tubes, brake cables, shifting cables, brake pads, and others.

We also need money to pay people like DNA to repair the bikes. So, financial donations are incredibly valuable. You can do that here if you are inspired to do so:
https://houselessmovement.org/donate/

From the bottom of my heart, I am so deeply thankful for your support. Thank you.

HOUSELESS MOVEMENT CHARITY TRASH CLEANUP CREWS

I truly believe we all have a place in society. Society just needs to let us have our place.

I'm going to be talking more about a brand new charity we just created: Houseless Movement Charity. The majority of the board members will always be homeless people. That is baked into our bylaws.

The fundamental beliefs of the charity are: acceptance, integrity, empowerment and community.

We aren't trying to force homeless people into being som**hing they are not. We are just trying to help them live their lives in ways that are better for themselves while being a force of good in the community.

One thing all homeless people want, from time to time, is money.

They don't usually want 40 hours a week money.

They need $20 here, and $40 there.

You might jump to conclusions about what people do with that money. And sometimes you're right. Sometimes the money is used for drugs or alcohol. It's often used for ci******es.

You might be surprised to know that sometimes it's used for gambling. Some homeless people have quit drugs so that they can spend every last penny at the Tap Tap machines.

But more often than not, after I pay a homeless person for a job, they will sometimes ask me to take them to the Dollar Store, where they get phones, food, toiletries and all kinds of stuff regular people want or need. It's not drugs or alcohol. Sometimes it's a coloring book and pens.

I feel like this desire for occasional money could align very nicely with needs in our community. The first place that comes to mind is trash cleanup projects.

Homeless people are often eager to pick up trash. I regularly hire homeless people for this kind of work.

So, our charity got an idea: What if we took our trash cleanup services on the road? What if we started cleaning up trash at highway offramps, parks, or any place that has trash that's been sitting around that no one has touched.

THIS IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR HELP: We'd like to know where there is trash in Akron that you'd like to see picked up. Please list locations you are aware of in the comments, and we'll put them on our list.

We will be paying $2.50-$5.00 per bag a person fills up. The price will depend on the size of the material. Smaller materials will pay more. Larger materials will pay less.

That will be our first expense.

Next, we will need trash bags. We use strong 33-gallon bags. The expensive contractor bags aren't typically necessary. If you'd like to donate trash bags to this cause, that would be wonderful.

And then our dumpster currently costs about $80/month for one pick up a week. Depending on how this goes, we might need to increase the number of pickups.

I feel like this program resonates with a variety of people:
* Homeless people get jobs that fit their lifestyle.
* Supporters like to see people empowering themselves to be productive.
* The entire Akron community benefits by seeing less trash.

If you'd like to learn more and possibly contribute to this cause with donations of trashbags or funds, you can go here for more information:
https://houselessmovement.org/donate/

This is my friend Nick.

He is currently staying at the Haven of Rest because this devastating fire happened to his house and truck on January 17.

He was in that house when it caught fire. He woke up coughing and choking. The room was thick with smoke. The floor was hot on his feet. He went to the balcony and climbed down the lattice.

He cut his leg badly escaping the fire and had inhaled a great deal of smoke. So they took him to the hospital.

He stayed at the hospital a couple of days. They had cut his pajamas off of him. Those were his only possessions. They discharged him wearing 2 hospital gowns - one on front and one on back, a pair of anti-slip socks, and a blanket … out into the January cold. (I’ve seen this happen more than once. I can’t believe that’s the policy.)

By the time he made it back to his house they had leveled it. He lost everything.

He recently put $1000 down on the truck you see here. He owes another $4000. He wants to use it as a job site office and bunk house.

If Nick’s story moves you, he has a PayPal donation link here:

https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/925X6h8kyE

And he is a very skilled handyman. He would be very happy to work with you if you need some work done.

Nick isn’t the typical homeless person I work with. Most people come to me after having nowhere to turn after months or years of being homeless.

The sooner a person can get out of homelessness the better their chances of success are.

Nick is a true fighter.

If you know Nick maybe reach out to him to offer him a hand. And if you have just met Nick, he definitely could use some friends at this point in his life.

Here are some pictures of our homeless day center. I took them on February 3, 2017.

Now on February 2, 2024, it feels like we are slowly going to start up again with a new charity, Houseless Movement Charity

The question is: how do we do it this time so we won’t get shut down by the fire department?

First and foremost, no one will sleep in the building. As we can see with the Ohio minister who is being charged for sheltering people in his church, it is the easiest way to get shut down. The city doesn’t care if you think God is calling you to do this work. They answer to a much higher power: The Ohio Revised Code. And you will learn the consequences if you don’t bow down to it too. 

Obviously, that’s wrong in every conceivable way imaginable. But if you aren’t just doing a protest, and you actually want to do this work, that’s the heinous truth of it all.

Second, we are only going to open up when we get our occupancy permit. We are close to achieving that. Again, the Ohio Revised Code is truly the sacred text we must all bend the knee to no matter how much anguish and suffering you see before you.

(A small third point is that we aren’t doing clothes. As seen in this picture, they pile up so fast. The fire department hated all the clothes we had.)

These concessions are very difficult for me to swallow. Clearly, we are torturing people who have lost everything and we’re doing it because we as a society don’t like them. We will open up an arena the minute wealthy people lose their homes due to a natural disaster to provide them instant shelter. But homeless people are different. They are seen as failures and the very bottom of the capitalistic caste system. We believe they deserve what they are getting. This is all a reincarnation/Hindu ideology. We don’t really believe in Christianity in this country. We just use it for what it gives to us. We all know that Jesus would say everyone deserves dignity and respect and compassion. But we never actually try to implement that ideology. We just use Jesus to try to get into heaven ourselves. That’s all he is for these days.

So, as you can see, I’m still bitter. But I am also wiser in knowing that these types of social changes take a very long time, if they ever actually happen at all. I have pretty much given up the idea that I can change anything other than myself. So while I am still an activist at heart I am more interested these days in actually helping a few homeless people. Who knows if change will ever come. That’s really difficult for me to accept. It feels like I’ve given up. But I haven’t. I’ve just settled in to telling these stories and hoping that someday somebody in power takes them to heart. 

Finally, it looks like we are going to be more of a maker space than just a day center. The idea will be that we will have a wide variety of different spaces where people can do different kinds of work. Bicycle repair, jewelry making, painting, drawing. Maybe someday welding. The idea is to find meaningful work that a homeless person might find interesting and then ultimately make some money on. Long-term homeless people are not great at showing up at work every day at 8 AM and punching a clock. But they are definitely not lazy. The idea would be that we could offer piece-work that a person could do on their own time and get paid for what they produce. 

Probably the biggest lesson I have learned is that idealism is the first thing society will strip you of. Hope for change is childish. I believe that the only reason we are healthier and live longer than we used to is because some white man made money off the idea. The heart of humanity does not change.

Collectively, we are selfish, small minded, and fearful. We are just chimpanzees in the wilderness, terrified another chimpanzee is going to steal our stuff and murder us. We have never gotten away from that as a society.

Individually, we are the most beautiful and giving and awe-inspiring creatures that inhabit the universe.

Everything that is good and magnificent and forgiving and gloriously beautiful lives within every human being. And I see it every single day. 
The greatest good, and the worst evil reside in the heart of humanity. They reside in each and every one of us. Collectively, we are too terrified to allow ourselves to be the good that we hold in our hearts. But individually we do it constantly. And that has been the holding pattern since the beginning of humanity.

That is what I have learned since February 3, 2017 compared to February 2, 2024. 

You have shown me that blindingly, beautiful, bright light that sits in the heart of humanity right next to that black hole of death. I do this work because of that bright light I see every single day in humans that care about our homeless community. That’s why I keep doing this work 

Hopefully what I have learned between then and now will be enough to keep our facility from being shut down by the city. We will see. 





Do you know Ashley Rosser from Harm Reduction Ohio?

She is doing the most innovative work in northeast Ohio in the area of harm reduction.

She pushes really hard on getting Narcan into the community and has done that for years. No one needs to EVER die from a fentanyl overdose. But they do all the time because no one was around to give them Narcan. Narcan is a Lazarus drug. It will raise you from the dead. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Now she is doing some really cutting edge work in m**h smoking supplies.

Where this is all naturally heading is supplying clean drugs to the community. The Vancouver group, Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) — a collective of advocacy groups working to ensure a safe supply of drugs — is already doing this work.

Also having safe injection sites is an obvious next step.

You only have to have an elementary understanding of addiction to know how people quit drugs. You quit when you are ready to quit and not a moment before. No amount of scorn or shame or threat of jail or near death experiences or freezing cold nights on the street will convince you otherwise. Ask any addict what those negative reinforcements do to you and they’ll tell you the same thing: They just make you do more drugs, not less.

You just have to stay alive long enough to get to that point.

And personally I’m getting to the point where this world is becoming so terrible to live in and our leaders care so little about us… if you never stopped doing drugs I wouldn’t blame you. All anyone cares about is funneling as much money as possible into the military industrial complex, and the pharmaceutical industry. Those are the only people that matter in the world today. So do what you want. I get it.

Ashley is an amazing human. We are very lucky to have her in our community. And she happens to be wearing a shirt in this picture from my group. I should have some pretty interesting news from the Houseless Movement in the next couple weeks.

I'm trying to catalog all the tiny house villages in the United States. If you see that I missed one, could you let me know:
https://bit.ly/3rseP2M

Tiny House Villages in America - Houseless Movement I want to try to keep a list of tiny house villages that exist in the United State. If you know of any that exist but aren't on this list please let me know: [email protected]

I'm trying to catalog all the tiny house villages in the United States. If you see that I missed one, could you let me know:
https://bit.ly/3rseP2M

Houseless Movement - Tiny House Villages Standing up for the fundamental human rights of our houseless brothers and sisters.

Houseless Movement Update -

Houseless Movement Update We've used propane Buddy Heaters throughout most of our work. But we are finding that they can be dangerous. And getting propane is difficult. So we've been moving more and more people to electricity.

We currently have 15 tents (1 burned down last night, more on that later). 2 tiny houses and a camper.

Everyone living in the Houseless Movement Garden knew that the larger size was only for the winter. But instead of just randomly throwing people out, I will be distributing these rules and setting up the work sign up sheet today.

In a smaller village the rules can be more flexible. But if we are going to have more people, the only way it will work is with more structure.

This is a study put out by the Guardian and Matt Fowle a researcher from the University of Washington. The federal government does not count deaths nationally of people deemed homeless.
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT WOULD RATHER HAVE THEM DIE.
https://bit.ly/3uzE5pa

‘Homelessness is lethal’: US deaths among those without housing are surging Untreated disease, violence, exposure, overdoses and car strikes are all added hazards of living on the streets

One of the most difficult aspects of activism is communication. It's so hard to get everyone together on one platform. My preferred place to talk is the Houseless Movement group on Signal. Signal is the most secure platform on the Web. Join us here:
https://bit.ly/3i0g2Ic

Signal Messenger Group Follow this link to join a group on Signal Messenger.

Houseless Movement Update -

Houseless Movement Update I'm starting a study called the Akron Homeless Longitudinal Study. I'll be posting the ongoing results and audio interviews on Patreon. The funds at Patreon will go to the participants of the study. I'd love it if you'd be a supporter of this work.

About $100,000 separates the middle class from the upper class

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives,

That top .01 percent has seen a huge boom in wealth, while the next .09 percent (together making the top 1 percent) have barely seen a growth in wealth. And the next 10 percent of wealthiest families have actually seen their wealth shrink.

The United States is the world's largest economy, made up of 50 economically diverse states.

The top 1% of wealthiest families in the United States have seen more income growth in recent decades than any other developed country in the world.

The median wealth of upper-income families is now 6.6 times that of middle-income families. That’s up significantly from even 2010, when it was 6.2 times greater.