Homeless People

NEW MARKET -- If Carl Freundel wanted only to entertain, his drama students could easily sell out Linganore High School's auditorium with a light-hearted musical, such as "Guys and Dolls."But Mr. Freundel, a drama teacher at the Frederick County school who also is a playwright, seeks to challenge his students. And his audience. He wants people to think, to see something with social relevance.So the school production this fall was "Hunger," a play with music and dance that was written by Mr. Freundel.

Halfway through Baltimore's long-term plan to end homelessness, advocates complain that the strategy is in disarray and worry that the number of men, women and children without permanent homes has grown - despite millions of dollars being pumped into local services. The 10-year Journey Home strategy, the advocates say, has fallen short of its objective, floundering without a direct line of leadership or accountability and frustrating the social services community that is pushing for solutions to a primary cause of homelessness: the lack of affordable housing.

An aging transportation building and garage in Baltimore has been restored into the $8 million Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Housing and Resource Center, adding to the growing complex of services for the homeless along the Fallsway. The 24-hour facility will provide temporary housing and services to the city's homeless population, which officials believe may exceed 4,000 on any given night. "This is the culmination of one of our goals in our 10-year plan to end homelessness," said Kate Briddell, director of the city's homeless services program.

Bonnie Lane stands in front of Baltimore's City Hall, arms crossed, lips pursed, on a mission. Her stance is memorialized in a photo and article on the pages of Word on the Street, the fledgling newspaper she helped launch nearly a year ago. The "street paper" — one of 23 in the United States — is produced by homeless people, their advocates, and those who were once homeless, such as Lane. "You need to give people hope," Lane, 39, said. "Once they lose hope, they're not motivated to make things better for themselves.

As temperatures dip below 40 degrees and forecasters predict snow this week, the homeless in Baltimore and elsewhere are frantically searching for places to stay warm and dry. A group of homeless people have set up encampments along Guilford Avenue and President Street. Highs this week are expected to be in the mid-40s, with lows in the mid-20s. A survey this year estimated that 3,000 homeless people live in Baltimore.

The St. Louis School in Clarksville brought in more than $8,600 for a coalition of Howard County churches that aids homeless people, in the school's fifth annual fund-raiser.The parochial school's 400 students solicited pledges for Churches Concerned for the Homeless from sponsors of students who solved math problems in a Math-a-thon.Churches Concerned for the Homeless is a nonprofit organization of 30 churches in the county that provides transitional housing and counseling to help homeless people become self-sufficient.

Homeless people are moving to the suburbs. That's where the homes are.The Japanese economy is going down the tubes. Don't gloat. They can't buy our stuff if they can't buy anything.The Supreme Court is marching again into the thicket of religion. Pray it finds its way out.

Harford County has a Good Samaritan in J. William McNally, a retired Edgewood minister who wants to build a boarding house and low-income housing for homeless people trying to pull their lives together. But he needs help from County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann so that work can begin by this spring, as he has planned.The boarding house, Second Step, is to be located across the street from Forward Step Inc., a shelter for homeless and abused women on Old Edgewood Road that Mr. McNally also operates.

More than 100 volunteers, including experts and students from two Baltimore universities, embark today on a census that will use survey techniques and global positioning technology to count and track the city's homeless population. Organizers said yesterday that they planned to start collecting information beginning at 1 a.m. today, visiting spots in a 50-block area in the central city where homeless people are known to sleep. A later shift of volunteers will visit soup kitchens, day shelters and other places in the city where homeless people congregate during daylight hours, officials said.

JEFFREY SANFORD was well-known to the emergency room staff at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. He was, like many homeless people, a "frequent flier" who treated hospital emergency rooms like doctors' offices, and turned to them for routine medical care he should have been getting at neighborhood clinics. Such facilities are desperately needed but sorely lacking, not just in this city but around the country. When Mr. Sanford died on a cold April night last year, it was not in one of the many emergency rooms he frequented, but in a small park across the street from Mercy, engulfed by flames from a fire he may have set to stay warm.