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Showing posts from January 29, 2012

Homeless in Suburbia

Markus, Gabriel, Sarah, Russell and me Last Thursday night, January 27, at the invitation of Russell Head, I joined 100+ volunteers with the Collin County Homeless Coalition to make an annual count of the homeless in our county. We gathered at City Hall about 8:00 p.m., and after an hour plus of training and assignments our team headed out with a Plano Police officer to look for those who are categorized as homeless in our city . We carried our survey forms and "care packages" supplied by local Scout troops, non-profits, and churches. It had rained very hard two days previously, and the places where the officer knew people stayed--along railroad tracks, under freeway overpasses, and along the "creeks" that run through town --were empty. We also did not find anyone in the cars parked in store and office parking lots between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. that night. Part of our team did talk to a hotel employee who "knew what we were asking" but d