January 12, 2017

Every day in Southern Delaware, I work in the trenches and on the front lines of poverty, fear, homelessness, loneliness, isolation, addiction and mental illness.

People ask me about what I am seeing and experiencing out here on the front lines. In my opinion, there are the “roofless” and then there are the “homeless.” Being roofless means living rough. You are living outside with no cover. It also means most

times…..ROOT-less with little or no ties,

Being roofless mostly means living in active addiction and/or enduring an untreated mental illness. Living roofless is extremely exhausting, very fluid, dangerous, dark and unpredictable. It also costs about $10 a day to be roofless because of the needed supplies and provisions that you normally would NOT buy if you had a hard roof overhead. Many of the roofless are also smokers so you can add at least another six or more dollars to the $10 dollars a day cost of being roofless. Living roofless is also ruthless. It is brutal. If you are chronically roofless living outside, then you will die 25 years earlier than the average person who lives inside.

Now, what does homeless mean?

Homeless means you do have a hard roof overhead and there is much more accountability about your behaviors. You are living in an emergency shelter, an abandoned building or living on a couch… also known as “couch-surfing.” Being homeless could mean being doubled up or tripled up with family members.

Being homeless also could mean living in your vehicle. You can’t sign a lease or a deed in your own name.

Being homeless means you have an income of some sorts but it is not enough to pay rent or sign a deed/mortgage.

You purchase a car instead. You are a low wage earner and you are working on your recovery and your sobriety.

Being homeless also means living in transitional housing or group housing or shared living without a signed lease.

You are precariously housed living under the graces of another person or people. I estimate there are 100,000 Delawareans who are homeless and 30,000 Delawareans who are roofless.

There are 200,000 Delawareans with a mental illness. There are 100,000 Delawareans in active addiction. Of course, there are many Delawareans who struggle with both addiction and mental health conditions.

With the start of the New Year, we have many huge social problems in front of us to solve. Population health experts routinely state that 1 in 5 suffer with a mental illness. 1 in 10 with a severe addiction. There are a little less than 1 million Delawareans in total. Twenty percent have a mental illness and 10 percent have a severe addiction. As far as the roofless/homeless population, I am involved in a “point-in-time” study each year that helps to count the Delawareans who are unsheltered during …

An off-grid village of 150 souls in Oregon is running out of food due to the severe snowstorms in the area.  And there is a severe threat of the weight of snow collapsing roofs.

County commissioners declared a local state of emergency around Prineville near Bend,OR yesterday after being pummeled with feet of snow for weeks. But now, county resources are drained and they need state help, said county emergency preparedness coordinator Vicky Ryan.

Ryan said Juniper Acres, an isolated, off-the-grid community south of Prineville, is county officials’ main concern. The community of about 150 has been cut off from emergency resources due to snow-blocked roads, which the county does not maintain, she said.

Crook County officials have asked the state for money, equipment and manpower to help plow rural roads that the Central Oregon county does not maintain in the area 30 miles north-east of Bend.

Some roads have reportedly been covered in snow drifts up to 8 feet deep. Crook County Judge Seth Crawford tells The Bulletin newspaper they’re impassible and people who live in neighborhoods including Juniper Acres and Prineville Lake Acres can’t leave to get supplies. Some may be running low on food and heat.

Maya Bamer lives in Juniper Acres subdivision, southwest of Prineville. She says snowmobiles are being used to deliver donated goods to snowed-in families.

a large portion of the shut Woodgrain Millwork plant in Prineville collapsed last Sunday morning, four days after another part of the roof collapsed under the weight of heavy snow. And a Tumalo youth ranch’s arena also collapsed from wet, heavy snow — but fortunately, no injuries occurred in either case.

“My husband and I were just outside playing in the snow with our kids and heard what sounded like an earthquake,” Jennie Quinn of Prineville told NewsChannel 21. “The rest of the Woodgrain Mill collapsed!”

This time, photos showed the walls also had fallen, not just the roof, leaving large holes exposed to the elemets.

Another area resident said Sunday’s collapse on the northeast corner of the complex of connected buildings blew sawdust and small debris across Peters Road, prompting a closure in case more of the structure fell at the 83-acre site, which the Idaho firm has up for sale.

The heavy snow also caused a collapse of the indoor arena at Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch on Innes Market Road in Tumalo.

“It’s a total loss,” CEO/Founder Troy Meeder said of the 9:30 a.m. collapse. “We have close to $500,000 of equipment now buried under snow, wood and twisted metal.”

But it could have been worse: Just “a few minutes before,” Meeder said, as one of her team was parking a tractor inside after use. Another team member and his 2-year-old son “were just gearing up to get out one of the tractors to move snow.”

“The building collapsed while neither was inside — thank you, …