Homeless Men

A memorial service was held late Friday - the longest night of the year - at the Inner Harbor to honor the more than 100 homeless men and women who died this year in Baltimore. The ceremony, in its 22nd year, was also intended to raise awareness for the struggles of the homeless, said Adam Schneider, spokesman for Healthcare for the Homeless. He said men and women who are homeless are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than those with a home. The average age of a homeless individual at death is 47. The names of those who died were read aloud for the roughly 150 people in attendance, and a candle was lit in honor of each of the deceased.

Tracy Jones pounded a pair of sneakers against the wall of an Interstate 83 ramp, shaking off months of caked-on dirt. She tossed aside a long-sleeve shirt that had been chewed by a rat and packed up her few belongings Friday as a team of city workers razed the homeless encampment where she had lived with more than a dozen others. Jones and her husband, Charlie, finally were going home. "There's no feeling in the world like it," he said. The couple moved into a sparsely furnished rowhouse on Dumbarton Avenue, where they hope to rebuild their lives and be reunited with their four children, who were removed from their care.

The weather is turning chilly and the crowds are building at soup kitchens like the one at Essex United Methodist Church on Baltimore County's east side. About 150 diners take advantage of the hot meal served every Wednesday. Many ask if coats or blankets might be available and wonder where they will spend the winter. "I would definitely stay here, if there was a shelter," said Chris Jones, 51, who was unsure where he would spend the night. "I think a lot of guys would. There are about 200 of us homeless just in this area.

Homeless advocates and a city councilwoman sharply criticized Monday a Rawlings-Blake administration plan to remove an encampment of about a dozen homeless people this week from under the Interstate 83 overpass in central Baltimore. But administration officials defended the move as a safety measure, designed to protect homeless men and women from a camp they say is overrun by drugs, alcohol and violence. "I'm concerned about the safety of the individuals in the encampment," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday.

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles police detectives said Friday they were scrambling to locate several men who may have fallen victim to a pair of elderly women accused of taking out large life insurance policies on two homeless men later killed in suspicious hit-and-run accidents. Authorities allege that the women purchased rubber stamps bearing the signatures of at least eight men, which detectives believe could have been used to forge signatures on insurance forms. The whereabouts of some of these men remain unknown.

After exposure to extreme cold contributed to the deaths of four homeless people this month, the city is raising the temperature threshold for the Code Blue emergency shelter program from 25 to 32 degrees. The city's new health commissioner, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, made the change yesterday and said that a review of information on hypothermia shows that "there was still quite a risk up to 32 degrees" and that about half the city's deaths from the cold in the past few years had occurred in temperatures over 25 degrees.

For months, the crimes seemed to go unnoticed outside a transient community around Southwest Baltimore rail yards: beatings, bludgeonings and pocket-change robberies of drunk or sleeping homeless men. Then one by one, the crimes turned deadly. Three homeless men beaten to death over four months, slayings one teen-age suspect chillingly dubbed "sport killings." Yesterday, detectives exulted in the arrest this week of Michael Wayne Farmer, a 17-year-old dropout from Garden City, Kan. It marked the third arrest in a case that disgusted a task force of Baltimore City homicide investigators and motivated them to solve it. Farmer, who will turn 18 next week, was charged Thursday as an adult in the March beating of George D. Williams near a squatter's makeshift dwelling in the 1500 block of S. Eutaw St. and the bludgeoning of Gerald J. Holle, found a month later beneath the Interstate 295 and Interstate 95 overpasses near the 1800 block of S. Monroe St. Two city youths, Daniel Ennis Jr., 16, and Harold Waterbury, 17, who lived with Farmer in a South Baltimore rowhouse, also have been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Williams and Holle.

HOLIDAY GIFTS come in all shapes and sizes, but few are as unusual as the one Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke will open at 11 a.m.today.Oasis Station is the name of a drop-in center for homeless people that has been created at 222 N. Gay St.The three-story building for many years was the home of Simon Harris Sporting Goods, a Baltimore retailer that closed its doors in 1992 after 105 years.It was provided for the new purpose by a Baltimore businessman, Joe Hevia of Mass Transit Communications -- Wallscapes.

Deverick Howell could only stare at the television as Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff's last-chance field goal attempt hooked left of the uprights, dealing the team and its fans a heartbreaking 23-20 loss Sunday to the New England Patriots. "I feel angry and disappointed," said Howell, who had worn his purple sneakers and loudly cheered the team on with fellow residents of Christopher Place, a residence for 60 formerly homeless men at the Our Daily Bread Employment Center on Fallsway.

Baltimore County officials have found housing for the 55 men to be displaced by the closing next week of a shelter for the homeless in Rosedale. Nehemiah House, the only shelter for homeless men in eastern Baltimore County, will shut down for a month beginning Tuesday, President Bart Pierce wrote this week in a letter to county homeless services coordinator Sue Bull. The shelter, which has been operated by Rock City Church in Towson for nearly 19 years, gave residents a week to make other arrangements.

Maryland is currently experiencing the coldest temperatures in nearly two years, with multiple days that have been well-below freezing ("Cold snap raises health concerns," Jan. 24.) As your article points out, our most vulnerable residents - the elderly and the homeless - are exposed to deadly conditions. We've already had 11 deaths so far linked to hypothermia, and that was before the most recent cold. What people may not realize is that many shelters offer resources for the homeless beyond a warm place to stay.

This is in response to a letter Jessica Grant wrote about the homeless facility Howard County is trying to build in North Laurel in the opinion section of the Laurel Leader (Dec. 21). First of all we cannot compare the homeless men, women and children of this area to the homeless in Los Angeles and Florida.   Evidently she has never been around our homeless community. I tried it for three years, mostly in North Laurel. I have met some great people, also a few bad ones, but most of all we are like a big family that takes care of each other.   Don't get me wrong, it's a day-to-day struggle out there.

A memorial service was held late Friday - the longest night of the year - at the Inner Harbor to honor the more than 100 homeless men and women who died this year in Baltimore. The ceremony, in its 22nd year, was also intended to raise awareness for the struggles of the homeless, said Adam Schneider, spokesman for Healthcare for the Homeless. He said men and women who are homeless are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than those with a home. The average age of a homeless individual at death is 47. The names of those who died were read aloud for the roughly 150 people in attendance, and a candle was lit in honor of each of the deceased.

Five men say they have been banned from the city's homeless shelter after a fight broke out Saturday evening, prompting concerns from legal advocates about the shelter's protocol for barring the homeless from the $8 million facility. The shelter's manager said that at least a dozen intoxicated men had attacked staffers Saturday night and police arrested two after witnessing them strike employees. "Anyone that physically assaults a client or staff member is permanently barred from our shelter," said shelter manager Linda Trotter.

Deverick Howell could only stare at the television as Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff's last-chance field goal attempt hooked left of the uprights, dealing the team and its fans a heartbreaking 23-20 loss Sunday to the New England Patriots. "I feel angry and disappointed," said Howell, who had worn his purple sneakers and loudly cheered the team on with fellow residents of Christopher Place, a residence for 60 formerly homeless men at the Our Daily Bread Employment Center on Fallsway.

Artscape — a celebration of visual and performing arts extending 12 city blocks, centered on Mount Royal Avenue and North Charles Street, is July 15-16, noon-10 p.m., and July 17, noon-8 p.m. Includes live music, dance, classical and experimental music, opera and theater performances, fashion, film, art, street theater, children's activities, food and beverages. Free. Go to http://www.artscape.org or http://www.promotionandarts.com. Summer Sounds at the Square — a weekly outdoor summer concert series featuring live music by local bands, continues with the Apple Scruffs, a Beatles tribute band, July 15, 6-9 p.m., in the Belvedere Square courtyard, at the corner of York Road and Belvedere Avenue.

A proposal that half of a $60,000 grant go toward a shelter for homeless men has drawn criticism from some advocates for the poor, who fear the residents would become dependent.The advocates also contend that the money from the county's Grant-in-Aid program should be allocated more evenly among all county human services agencies."I think a men's shelter would create dependency for single men, especially young men," said Dorothy Moore, director of the Howard County Community Action Council, a private nonprofit organization that helps low-income people.

Maryland is currently experiencing the coldest temperatures in nearly two years, with multiple days that have been well-below freezing ("Cold snap raises health concerns," Jan. 24.) As your article points out, our most vulnerable residents - the elderly and the homeless - are exposed to deadly conditions. We've already had 11 deaths so far linked to hypothermia, and that was before the most recent cold. What people may not realize is that many shelters offer resources for the homeless beyond a warm place to stay.

Jo N. Booze, a retired private school educator who later worked for Episcopal Social Ministries, died June 13 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Broadmead retirement community resident was 79. The daughter of a Baltimore surgeon and a homemaker, Jo Nelson was born in Baltimore and spent her early years in Arbutus before moving with her family to a home on Fairway Drive in Towson. She was a 1950 graduate of Bryn Mawr School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1954 from Sweet Briar College.

Jo N. Booze, a retired private school educator who later worked for Episcopal Social Ministries, died June 13 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Broadmead retirement community resident was 79. The daughter of a surgeon and a homemaker, Jo Nelson was born in Baltimore and spent her early years in Arbutus before moving with her family to a home on Fairway Drive in Towson. She was a 1950 graduate of Bryn Mawr School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1954 from Sweet Briar College.