Breaking the ice

Breaking the ice is a phrase most of us are familiar with. The most popular meaning is to initially engage someone in a first-time conversation. An ice-breaker is a joke, or lame pick-up line used to ease tension and gain confidence. Most of these definitions refer to personal, individual social interaction.

For the last three years, I've been trying to break the ice in a different way-trying to get through bureaucratic bullshit and promote the Street newspaper idea to which this blog is a mere precursor.

Most agencies I've contacted that I thought would have at least one person willing to meet with me and discuss the concept simply didn't reply. Silent treatment. We've all experienced this when trying to break the ice. Those who agreed to a meeting didn't seem to grasp the concept, although I explained it as simply as possible. I even brought visual aids. Many of them thought I was begging for money. I never uttered the words donation or contribution.

My point is that I've just been getting the brush-off, the cold shoulder, from people who purport to be in the business of helping homeless people.  I've felt like I've been trying to pick up a cheap date with no redeeming qualities to back me up. I can handle rejection, but this seems excessive.

The success, importance, and innovation of street newspapers in helping the homeless has been proven time and again over that last 30 + years, not only in North America, but around the globe. It can and will be done here in Salt Lake. If not by myself, then by someone with more connections, credentials, or maybe just a more attrtactive pitch.

Anyhow, I'm drafting letters to Mayors Ralph Becker and Peter Corroon. Here's hoping they're looking to break the ice, and will warm to finding more solutions to benefit those who need help.

In this issue of RGR, I wanted to concentrate on some publications and organizations from which I receive regular e-mail updates:

'Voluntary homelessness' The unreality of urban plunges by Robert Funke Street Roots  contributing writer. Reprinted from The Contributor

Diaries of the disenfranchised: Optimism is not an early riser by Julie McCurdy Street Roots
Julie McCurdy is a homeless woman living in Portland, Oregon

Lawsuit pushes Social Security... from Street Roots staff reports

What is NASNA? by Israel Bayer, chairperson of the board of directors for the North American Street Newspaper Association

Literature

rocketpoetry: poems by homeless people.

Old Man and a Dog by Jay Theimeyer

Looking at Autumn from a Train by Kareem Ali

until next week...

your editor