April 6, 2009

Cleaning papers kept in a to-do folder of sorts. Gazette Newspaper clipping dated April 6, 2009 headline: Search For New Voters Registers The Homeless, by editor Kurt Helin. When I first started blogging and creating websites something like that would be recorded and filed the same day or so.

Last paper clutter clean-up ~ well maybe not the exact last ~ I discarded an envelope of news clippings about homelessness that I intended to write about on this blog. Some were Letters to the Editor or Press-Telegram published caller Speakout quips.

At issue in this article was Rev. Misi Tagaloa was running for a First District Council seat. The Rev's church is the Second Samoan Congregational Church. 290 homeless registered to vote; 80 using the church's address as there own. Tagaloa said homeless might list Lincoln Park as there address and possible they mixed up mailing and street addresses. He said he does not allow homeless to use the church address to receive mail.

The article said only the MSC (Mutli-sevice Center) allows homeless to use their address to get mail. That is not true. The Village (MHA) on Elm Ave listed as home to 84 homeless voters, does indeed provide mail service for homeless.

City Attorney Robert Shannon was concerned about the surge of new voter registrations using non-residential addresses. He said "filling out a false address and illegally voting in an election is a felony."

I wonder, would it be legal to use Lincoln Park as home address? People living on the streets do not have a residence, so technically any that register to vote are committing a felony. Homeless people are citizens and I doubt when the Constitution was penned that the issue of not having a fixed place of residence was considered.

I understand the concern with Tagaloa's church being located in the First District, yet I would have voted for him, if I voted in that election. I may have; do not recall. The reason being I knew him personally, not well, mind you, from when I volunteered in 2006 at the Samoan church preparing lunch and clean up.

The same could be said of quite a few homeless who line up at the doors for a hot meal Monday thru Friday. Those hours may have changed. I headed there for a Thanksgiving meal (last November?) and changed my mind. People were lined up down the block and around the corner. No longer being homeless, felt it better to let others eat what I may have been served.

I do like turkey and wanted to meet up with homeless peers. Of course, many in the line are not homeless and I am guessing some are not even poor.

Okay another scrape of paper to the recycle bin.