Homeless in Minneapolis (main edited manuscript as of 7-16-2020 @8:57am)

Forward

"We need to strengthen such inner values as contentment, patience, and tolerance, as well as compassion for others. Keeping in mind that it is expressions of affection rather than money and power that attract real friends, thus compassion is the key to ensuring our own well-being"

- The Dali Lama

I would like to dedicate this book to my beloved former wife Beverly Rae Roath, (1966-2018) who passed away during its writing, and whose brilliance as an author, editor, and college educator are responsible for the writer I am today.

Also to my father Edward “Brassie” Zann who aspired to be a writer but never took the time while still well to became one. Tetris my greatest debt is to my mother Marge and brothers Ed & Tim, whose moral and financial assistance carried me through several health crisis and lean moments while writing this book.

I was raised by three amazingly powerful women- My saintly mother Marge, My Aunt Sophie Busic (Zann) and my Maternal Polish Grandmother Kathryn Pawlawsek Bigos (aka Baki). The love they showed me and their hard-working (usually drunk) husbands taught me about life, humor, strength, stamina, and the value of never quitting until you are living your dream. These infused character traits and huge doses of unconditional love made it possible for me to not only write this book, but stay alive through the most violent, chaotic, and tumultuous times the city of Minneapolis has ever seen.

Our family, still full of some drunks and a fair measure of jokesters, good cooks, musicians, artists, doctors, MBA’s,bean counters, snake collectors, union activists, healthcare professionals, retired C130 US Air Forse crew, pharmacy executives, stadium food service managers, gardeners, construction managers, mayors, historians, dirt farmers, bikers, McDonalds workers, preachers, moonshiners, and a whole lot more have done our four grandparents, eight Zann siblings, and five Bigos siblings proud. Thanks also to my many Zann, Bigos, Busic, Brocklehurst, Lepic, Gayvont, Bowman, Slaga, and Saksa, cousins for a great, almost “Stand By Me” growing up in the Appalachian foothills of Belmont County, Ohio. Hills and “Hollers” where we hiked for hours and days in the woods. Experiences that taught me to live harmoniously with others- even if I had to encounter rattlesnakes, copperheads, possum, raccoons, bobcats, and brown bears while camping.

How is that relevant? It’s called courage and respect- two qualities that were requisite to live among 1000 often dangerous humans while “urban camping” on the streets of Minneapolis in all manner of moderate to extreme weather.

There’s not a lot of difference between the tools you need to protect yourself climbing the back trail of Seneca Rocks in xxxx county West Virginia, and surviving on the streets of MInneapolis post Covid-19 and #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd. Those tools being a strong waterproof backpack,a container for water, a way to start a fire, a sharp (legal) knife, a first aid kit, some alcohol (to sterilize potential wounds or use as pain killer...Lol), and for good measure a machete in case (as cousin Steve and I did at 17), we needed a way to kill a couple timber rattle snakes on our ascent to the top of Seneca rocks.

But a machete is also pretty effective if someone pulls a knife or a gun on you on the lawless streets of Minneapolis after dark in recent weeks. As Crocodile Dundee once said in a hilarious movie.... “That’s not a knife...THIS is a knife.”

As for Me, the Zannman?

I’m living my dream as a music producer, author, painter, cook, comedian, and lover of dogs, cats, birds, and nature in general. If you see me on a bridge in MInneapolis flying a sign and looking homeless, or know me from my many walks of life? Stop and say hello. Let’s take 15 minutes and have a chat about all being in the same two races- the rat race and The Human Race.

Thanks also to my generous and fiercely loyal friends, especially Rod Scofield, Pastor Jen Nagel of the University Lutheran Church of Hope (ULCH) in Minneapolis, and her staff Gayle, Nick, Garamu and Zach, my many friends and supporters on Facebook, and to Joseph “Moochie” McRunnel, the “KIng of the Minneapolis Homeless” who sadly was murdered near the end of my two years living among Dinkytown’s homeless crew.

Maybe in 20 years I will actually retire but life is too interesting, I’m having too much fun (and excitement I don’t always welcome) but living among the unsheltered Americans I have met and lived with these past 26 months has been the most amazing and rewarding journey of my life.

And I’m not done yet, cause I’m never quitting but trying to live like Kirk Douglas, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and George Burns...

Lastly, with both gratitude and sorrow I would like to posthumously thank Peter McQuaid (1951-1994), my kind and gentle music partner from New Hampshire since 1975. Near the end he was a co-writer and multi-talented musician for the more than two years from 1990-92 when we shared a home and recorded music at Prince’s Paisley Park. Few people were allowed to “be in his house” as Prince Rogers Nelson silently moved about his domain. Along with our roommate Deb, it was a chapter I and we were fortunate to live in our lives.

When my on-again-off-again relationship with Deb ended in late 1992, Peter, then in a state of declining mental illness, hitch-hiked to Florida in search of warm camping weather to live off the grid again as he had for years in New Hampshire. Once again homeless, Peter’s death came in the Florida Everglades where he was eaten alive by an alligator. An ancient mindless reptile unchanged since it walked the earth with other carnivorous dinosaurs millions of years ago.

Peter’s death was an event that shook me to my core. It made me regret to this day that I did not then do more to help him from being Homeless in Minneapolis...

May God and His Angels Bless all who are among the Departed-

Love- Chris

` Prologue

The core of this book was a result of what I have politely called my "research phase" as an embedded freelance journalist and author. A period of time from April 8th, 2018 until the Summer of 2020 (present day as I write). This time, which encompasses some 28 or more months of living among the Homeless of Minneapolis and primarily its "Home Bum" (year-round resident homeless) "crew" of the neighborhood known as Dinkytown. “Dinky” (as it has been known to thousands of University of Minnesota students), is the historic commercial district of 16 square blocks adjacent to the north end of the University of Minnesota's East Bank campus.

Referencing this journalistic and social experiment in urban survival as "27 months or so" seems far less daunting in retrospect than saying 117 weeks, or some 800+ days, or almost 20,000 hours. But that, in fact, was the amount of time the majority of my personal belongings were in storage, and how long since I have had a lease on a room or an apartment I can legitimately call my home.

It is also how long I have lived by choice with essentially the same resources as the average homeless resident of Dinkytown. Paring my belongings down to a backpack, what I could fit in it, what I could wear or carry, and what money I had as stable earned income from my early Social Security retirement, what I hustled up daily as cash, plus "street finds" (Always Be Looking Down while walking), and "other assets" that the homeless community trade, barter, dumpster dive, or “boost” (as well-intentioned Robin Hoods) to trade or sell among its known and transient homeless crew members.

They (and we) are a true community living on the margins of American society, with only our wits, stamina, grit, and survival knowledge that those still standing have gained. Some over more than two decades living as “homeless by choice” in an unforgiving environment- urban Minnesota.

When I first hit the streets of Dinkytown- where I had shopped, dined, walked alone, and busked (played music with Larry, a 26-year street musician fixture in Dinkytown) for at least four years prior as a resident of the adjacent neighborhood, the Minneapolis neighborhood just west of I-35W known as Marcy-Holmes.

There, I was a “regular, respected resident” and welcome customer of all Dinkytown businesses since my arrival in 2014. Before I became perceived as “one of those homeless people...”

By 2018 I had had years of watching survival shows to know that there are certain basic things one should have. A container for water, a knife, and a way if needed to start a fire. But those were survival techniques for the wild.

While these baseline items are also very relevant and useful in "urban camping" (which is really what life on the streets of any American city is) getting by as a homeless person can be quite dangerous in a weather-unstable major city like Minneapolis. Such basic Outlander tools needed in the wild are far from adequate, as Stevie Wonder once put it, “Living in the City...”

Being a homeless urban camper requires incredilbly greater knowledge. A mastery of resources, people, urban subcultures like gangs, travelers, train kids, rubber tramps, home bums, and, if you are respected, you are offered homeless “trade secrets” by veterans like BeetleJuice, Jack Frost and Michael McGovern. Tips and tricks that were tantamount to me coming out of these two years still healthy and literally alive.

Yes, there were times when I was rumored to be a cop, or a rapist, or other vile suspicions, and therefore “marked for death” (or at least a serious ass beating) as some imposter homeless dude. All this due to unfounded street rumors spread by haters (we all have them). Also, I almost died of hypothermia and frostbite in January of 2020. Life on America’s mean streets is not without substantial peril, and only the strong and smart survive...

My time was primarily spent among the homeless of Dinkytown, but also to a lesser degree in multiple Minneapolis neighborhoods. As time went on I met the homeless of Uptown, Downtown, Northeast, Seward, South Minneapolis, and I even spent time “On the Lamb” on “the St. Paul side” for reasons you will soon read about.

Those many days, with the exception of going home to Ohio for a few weeks here and there, were all spent living on the streets. But boarding the Amtrak Empire Builder at Union Station in St.Paul, traveling through Chicago with a two hour lay over, then via the Amtrak Capitol Express overnight to Pittsburgh and on to my final destinations of Wheeling, West Virginia (where I was born) and Lansing, Ohio- those weeks were my only relief both physically & mentally, from the ardors of living among Minneapolis’ homeless.

Strictly speaking, I was only homeless during these past two years when in Minneapolis. While in Ohio, I had the option of a normal working class experience in our family homestead that is largely unchanged since 1964. A home where I grew up and lived almost one-third of my life. A place and experiences that became the crucible in which this book was born, nurtured, and completed.

At this moment I am writing and editing the final manuscript from the modest working class house Mom & Dad bought in 1963– which is still Mom's house as she approaches her 89th year. It is the house that I grew up in from 1964 until 1975 where my present office is the “green bedroom,” a room where I slept since I was an eight year old.

It is also the room where I learned to play guitar and bass by playing along with the gold & platinum records and CD’s of the day. Music made by my now good friends Leland Sklar and many other great guitar and bass players like James Taylor, Glen Campbell, Chet Atkins, Steve Gibson, Norbert Putnam, Joni Mitchel, CSNY, Seals & Crofts, and others who over time became my friends and musical cohorts among the more than 20 Grammy winners I have produced and made music with since leaving this bedroom for New England in 1975.

So now in 2020, as I approach my own 65th birthday, I am spending every hour I am well enough while still recovering from nearly fatal frostbite— to sit in this room and do my best to educate my fellow Americans about homelessness in this deeply divided country led by its worst President in its history.

God save us all and our planet as well!

Zannman

Chapter 1: Some Historical Perspectives

Since the 1960's, an era of protests when a young Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota reinvented himself as musician Bob Dylan. But when he was yet Robert Zimmerman...

From then until present day, the compact near-University of Minnesota four-block-by-four block neighborhood known as Dinkytown, Minneapolis, has been a mecca of sorts for many of America’s train traveling and local hobos. The “traditional;” homeless, if you please...

§§§

Chapter 1: Some Historical Perspectives

Since the 1960's, an era of protests when a young Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota reinvented himself as musician Bob Dylan, but when he was yet Robert Zimmerman, 14th Avenue SE and University and 4th Streets SE have had a history as an almost “magic spot.”

Not only did Robert eventually become Bob, but due to his disenchantment with his classes, the professors, and life in general, he stopped going to classes and essentially flunked out long before the end of his freshman year. This period of time in his artistic journey to international fame is also chonicled in several of his own biographies and in part in author Bill Hutzinger's recent tome “The History of Dinkytown.”

Dinkytown is much changed since 1960, but its streets, and in particular 14th Ave. SE and "Positively 4th Street" are still there. At its intersection today above what is now the Loring Pasta Bar, Bob had what he described as a "shithole apartment" with a common bathroom. Four well documented facts of his time in Dinkytown include that he (as did I ) bought his first guitar at The Podium (which today is the Dinkytown Starbucks) where Ironically much of this book was written. Others involve his writing of “All Along The Watchtower” and “Positively 4th Street,” both of which were visible from his second story shit-hole apartment window.

No one who ever bought a guitar at The Podium was pleased to see it close and become a franchised purveyor of milkshakes with coffee for $5 that it is today...

Yet in present times, under the capable management of Andy Tucker, the Dinkytown Starbucks and its crew including Javi, Molly, Seth, Lime, Kendra, and more than a dozen other student Baristas have done perhaps more for the homeless of Dinkytown than anybody except maybe Minneapolis Police Officer Cliff Toles.

Not to mention Dinkytown Wine and Spirits owners Irv & Katie, their managers and longtime cashiers Jesca, Mandy, Abagail, and others who provide what is probably the one commodity that makes the physical and mental pain of life on the often cold streets of Minneapolis bearable. The same elixir that almost all of the Uof M students use for the same purpose- alcohol!

To understand the depth of my passion for Homeless Americans, I have to relate a more-than-40-year history of my exposure to the issue, both in my personal life and that of others whom I have known or met along the way. My story will often be interwoven with my life experiences as a professional musician, retail manager, college administrator, songwriter, record producer, software entrepreneur, educator, father, husband, friend, professional writer, and embedded journalist.

This book will examine the current state and contemporary causes and conditions of homelessness, not only in Minneapolis and its particular neighborhoods of Dinkytown, Marcy-Holmes, Northeast, Uptown, and Downtown where I spent over 700 days living among the homeless of theTwin Cities, but to a great extent the commonalities of being homeless anywhere. The stories of this amazing journey also include my encounters with homeless persons in my travels over these two years to and through Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling, WV during it's writing.

Writing truth requires an authentic point of view. I have always seen the experiences I endured living on the streets with my compadres as necessary to write this book. Even nearly dying of hypothermia a few months ago.

It is a freelance embedded journalism project, unencumbered by the demands of any editor or press deadline except ones that I might impose. Embedded journalists take risks. Sometimes those that threaten their physical & mental health or even risk death in the field.

Consider legendary journalists like Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw who bravely dodged bullets on the front lines of the Vietnam war to bring the hard truth of what a jungle war really is. How soldiers, many drafted from the ghetto's of the United States, had to kill chidren booby trapped with bombs and go down into tunnels to fight the Vietcong bare handed, or march up Hamburger Hill into virtually certain slaughter due to the incompetence of their West Point-educated commanders with little or no field experience in jungle warfare.

These brave journalist’s reporting moved the Anti-war protesting college students and the American people to eventually oppose the war so vehemently that then-President Nixon decided a rapid exit was the only way to save American lives in that disastrous war against the ideology of Communism and a flawed Domino Theory.

My goal herein is to have the same effect on modern day, compassionate Americans. To educate them as to the real issues, challenges, prejudices, and the often dark truth and plight of as many as three million plus veterans, mentally ill, addicted, formerly convicted men, plus unfortunate women and children living on our streets. It is my hope that within 5-to-10 years Minneapolis will be the first city in our country with no significant homeless population. To wit, I have presently lived more than 20 of the last 24 months on the streets of Minneapolis with the same meager resources as most of Minneapolis’ local "home bums.”

The most fortunate qualify for state of Minnesota General Assistance (aka GA), Social Security Disability income (SSD) or as in my case, a modest Social Security early retirement income that I earned by working 50 years .

But many have no source of income at all. They live in Minnesota because the voters of Minnesota are very generous. The state has a combination of the best medical care in the country and the most compassionate policies benefitting the poor and underserved. Others, who have adopted the more classic hobo lifestyle and refer to themselves as "train kids," descend on Dinkytown in the late Spring and stay until the weather goes cold in October or so. Then they begin their annual trek to New Orleans mostly, or other homeless-friendly southern cities where they are welcome.

Considering that in the month before I hit the streets I earned over $2500 in my self-employment work, one might argue that I sacrificed over $60,000 of personal income during the 24 months it took to both live and write this book. That with very limited access to my other personal property that has been in a good friends garage or paid storage since April 2018, one might think me a bit crazy.

Be assured I do not look at it that way. In part because the economics of living "home free" (as many homeless prefer to refer to themselves) you must consider that I did not pay a probable $800-$1200 per month in market average rent for a studio or one bedroom in the near-campus, Marcy Holmes neighborhood, or ever higher rent in the increasingly gentrified Northeast or Uptown areas. Then, add $50 for high speed internet, perhaps $30-$50 per month for other utilities, and the savings can be as much as $1300 per month or more.

If had I chosen to live in the gentrified, amenity-laden new digs near campus or Northeast like Nord Haus, where a studio apartment is $1850 and up (not counting indoor parking) it would have cost more than my annual early retirement earnings just to have a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. And so, over the 24 months to date that I have not had a rental lease, I have achieved a net savings of $24,000 to as much as $45,000, that I did not pay in lease-hold rent and ordinary living expenses, depending on my choice of modest-to-middle class lifestyle.

Also, when considering how the homeless population gets by day to day, one must consider that no one on the street goes without doing something to earn money daily, including busking (playing a musical instrument) or "work for food"day labor where they can find it.

Homeless Minnesotans and visiting "travelers" can also be seen functioning as "street entertainment" on 14th Ave. SE, Nicolet Mall, West Lake Street, or various interstate off- ramps. These are all prime locations where local as well as traveling homeless ply the venerable Woody Guthrie, Kerouc-Ginsberg American hobo tradition of "Flying a Sign". Expect an intriguing chapter on the "art & science" of flying a sign in your continued reading.

Believe me, when a homeless person wakes up in the morning with no money, no food, no coffee, no cigarettes (they are not only a creature comfort, but also a "street currency"), no clean socks, no warm hat or gloves, no tampons (think about that ladies), or no pain numbing Ibuprofen or a cheap adult beverage- that person, like any human, is VERY motivated to "go to work." Its a phrase that all of my street brothers and sisters, be they musicians busking, sign-flying "street entertainers" or panhandlers, refer to their daily efforts on the streets. The homeless of Dinkytown are also considered very much a tourist attraction on 14th Ave SE.

Interestingly, in one conversation with a private security officer who works for several local businesses owned by a common proprietor, apparently at one recent meeting of the local merchant's development association there was a question as to whether or not the Minneapolis 2nd Precinct or University of Minnesota police departments should be asked to purge the streets of Dinkytown of the up to 50 "home bums" and 50 more rotating transient Summer "traveling" homeless? The vote, at least as concerns the resident home bums apparently, was no.

Why? Because most Dinkytown homeless are respectful, colorful street characters who fascinate visiting passers by, and are known particularly among civic minded and compassionate U of M students, as a "cool" part of the local campus community. There are many reasons for this. Chief among them is that there are certain unwritten but widely acknowledged "rules" among the "regulars" and "home bums". Chief among them is to not obstruct sidewalks, clean the sidewalks daily, not fly a sign in front of the 50% of businesses with posted no trespassing signs, and the cardinal rule? Do not harass or cat call the female students. If this rule is not honored, it does not take the local police to enforce the concept.

In many respects, being natural cultural rebels, the senior homeless (like all sub-cultures there is a hierarchy) are happy to "ban" or take more drastic "vigilante actions" to ostracize any undesirable street types "off the block.” During my residency I saw anything from threats issued, to ass-whoopings, kicks in the head, knives pulled, and even caustic fluids used to accomplish the desired effect in ways that legitimate law enforcement dare not act. In addition, there is a close symbiotic relationship with the very professional and often liberal-to- compassionate UMPD and Minneapolis 2nd Precinct police, who have joint jurisdiction over Dinkytown, the slightly off-campus sorority row on 5th St. SE, and fraternity row on east University Ave. SE.

We all love Officer Cliff Toles, who not only advocates for the Dinkytown home bums, but at times even offers a few dollars of his own pay while on duty to "help a brother out." And he is not alone in his efforts to truly "Protect & Serve." Many of his colleagues in the 2nd Precinct MPD and UPMD are just as exemplary in the quality of their community policing at a street level.

Believe it or not the "5-0" and the homeless in many cases know each other by first (or street) names and even politely chat when hand-cuffs are being applied under certain "colorful" circumstances.......

Or not... As in "turn around and put your hands behind your back." Which of these scenarios occurs depends on the severity and hystericalness of the 911 caller who lodged a complaint requiring cruisers to hit the lights...

Or if someone on the block has an outstanding arrest warrant.

Chapter 2: Some History and Statistics About Homelessness

In consideration of the seriousness of homelessnes as a prime national issue, a portion of this book will take a deeper, factually researched look at the large-scale societal issues that drive homelessness in America. Homelessness affects a conservatively estimated 1 Million men, women, and children with nowhere to call home tonight. If you consider the number of U.S. citizens who will spend at least a few nights in a shelter, hotel, or out on the street this year, that number is an estimated 3,500,000 human beings who have been or will be labeled "homeless" before New Year's Day 2021.

You may ask: "How can so many people be homeless in what is supposed to be the wealthiest country on earth? And Why?"

Causes of homelessness in the United States are primarily a lack of affordable housing, followed by mental illness, untreated addictions, foreclosure, job loss, health crisis, divorce, negative cash flow, post traumatic stress disorder, fire, natural disasters (tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires or floods), physical disability, having no family or supportive relatives, substance abuse, lack of needed services, elimination of pensions and unemployment benefits, no or inadequate income sources (such as Social Security, stock dividends, or annuities), poverty (zero net worth) or annual income below current Federal guidelines, gambling, unemployment, and underemployment in the form of low-paying jobs with few or no benefits.

“Homelessness in the United States affects many segments of the population, including families, children, domestic violence victims, ex-convicts, veterans, and the elderly."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States#An-nual_Homeless_Assessment_Report_to_Congress

I am not the first author or journalist to write about living among the homeless, but I have some unique perspectives others did not. I not only did an immersive experience, but have been a diagnosed, medicated, and very “high-functioning” (lol) bipolar patient for nearly 30 years. This provided me with a personal grasp of many of the complex mental health issues among the homeless. I also possessed the patience to deal with sometimes out-of-range, even irrational, sometimes comical, "off the hook crazy", or even rare violent manic or schizophrenic episodes that some suffered through before my eyes on an all-to-frequent basis as I befriended and spent my days and nights with them.

For instance? There was that time when 2nd Precinct MPD unleashed 4 tasers on BeetleJuice, but that didn’t stop him from whooping ass on 6 officers before they got him in hand cuffs. The next time Officer Cliff needed to wake up BeetleJuice, Officer Cliff asked me to please wake him up, so I did to no drama.

Then there was the time Twist went into Jimmy John’s and threw his 6 foot long tow chain on the floor, demanding that the management treat the homeless with more respect and an occasional sandwich. Or the time that Twist ran into a certain upscale liquor store wielding a hammer, grabbed over $100 in top shelf booze (which he gave to the Uptown homeless), and left.

How? He yelled at the cashiers that if they called the cops he would smash every top shelf bottle in the store until the cops got there. They let him leave instead of lose $10,000 of inventory and have a mess of glass and liquid so massive the Health Department would make them close for days to clean and sanitize the premises, let alone rid it of the smell...

And Oh... Twist was such the master of disguise, in spite of the fact that his face was known to every beat cop in Minneapolis, his 100 disguises were not. And so he’s never been charged for that or one hundred other “Robin Hood incidents” where his mission was to borrow from the rich and lend a helping hand to the homeless. A Noble man is Twist Chain in the eyes of many—. and a menace and a scoundrel in the eyes of others. I guess every coin has two sides...

I have also spent up to 4 years teaching art, music, and tutoring GED as well as college students in five prisons, suffered a home foreclosure due to serious family medical issues and, along with my former wife Bev, weathered years of under-employment during last decade's recession.

For a brief period in 2015 I had to navigate what I can only call legal housing discrimination among property management companies and some private landlords in Minnesota where landlord-tenant laws have been skewed by business-friendly past legislatures to allow many grounds (such as a low credit score, decades old criminal convictions, or non-verifiable self-employment income) as “legally valid grounds” for the rejection of rental applications, which in reality were ways for property owners to circumvent laws against racial, socio-economic, religious, ADA, anti-GLBTQ, and other prohibitions aimed at housing discrimination. Just ask any non-white, disabled, gay, trans, lesbian, Jew, Asian, African, Hispanic, or Muslim person how “easy” it is to rent an apartment in much of small-town or red-state America.

These are laws and regulations that millions of middle class and underserved Americans have been fighting since housing inventories were reduced and decimated during the worst of the foreclosure crisis of 2007-2015.

Most of the over-arching socio-economic and political content that I will delve into within these pages will be well researched. The in-text citations and bibliography will include references from government reports, journalistic media, academia, as well as respected futurists and think tank publications.

I want my writings about the "big picture" issues to be as formally verifiable as a Master's Degree level APA research paper, most especially in today's atmosphere of relative truth, "alternative facts", and supposed "fake news". Distortions of objective fact alleged by a President and his minions who have told over 12,000 verifiable lies in his first three years in office. Lies that his cult loyalists will attest are the God’s-honest truth only because they issued from the mouth of their Herr Furer and cultural hero.

The issues that contribute to homelessness are complex and far reaching, stretching back as far historically as the end of the Civil War, through immigration policies over the past 150 years, the Great Depression, historic movements in Civil Rights and the recent fights for LGBTQ rights. Yes, racial, ethnic, and cultural prejudices play out even within families. Self righteous parents and siblings who disown their black-sheep brothers and sisters, most of whom who are typically mentally ill and comprise a great percentage of America's homeless. Vulnerable human beings who are being warehoused in prisons and jails (they were not 75 years ago) because there are few or no mental health facilities to care for or house them in 2020.

Did you know that under the 14th Amendment slavery is still legal in 2020? That the more than 250% expansion of "the American gulag" since Ronald Reagan of our county, state, and Federal prisons, which along with private "for profit" prisons, are the only entities legally allowed to still use slave labor?

Does that shock you? I hope so... Read the 13th Amendment which justifies paying incarcerated persons as little as $20 per month in Ohio for on average about $0.19 per hour, and similar or less hourly wages or no wage at all in many state and Federal prisons.

"The 13th Amendment ratified in 1865, says: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Scholars, activists and prisoners have linked that exception clause to the rise of a prison system that incarcerates black people at more than five times the rate of white people, and profits off of their unpaid or underpaid labor."

Is this slavery by another name? Armstrong argues that the 13th Amendment makes an exception for “involuntary servitude,” not “slavery,”and that there are important historical and legal distinctions between the two. However, she says no court has formally dealt with this distinction, and many courts have used to two terms interchangeably. In 1871, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a convicted person was “a slave of the State."

We now have more than 2.5 Million Americans in jail and prisons; more people than Stalin had incarcerated at the peak of the Soviet prison system.

Other socio-economic forces that have spiked homelessness since 2007 include the opioid crisis, and the mortgage crisis with its resulting downward spiral in housing inventories from foreclosures and demolition. All of these factors have contributed to a dramatic rise in the number of homeless Americans. Thank the Wolves of Wall Street for this result. And greed. Unadulterated greed has eliminated millions of habitable homes since 2008. Did you know that today there are still more unoccupied houses in American real estate inventories than there are homeless Americans?

Those of you reading this as a eBook or .pdf, please click the link below for a two minute read to absorb statistically and from a humanitarian viewpoint what has happened to homelessness persons in America since the deregulation of Wall Street under G.W. Bush & Cheney, and the implementation of even more draconian human services policies in the Trump era. Paper readers can Google the article title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_S-tates#Annual_Homeless_Assessment_Report_to_Congress

Lest you think the details unimportant, consider the following excerpt:

“In the year 2009, 1 in every 50 children or 1.5 million

children in United States of America will be homeless each year. There were an estimated 57,849 homeless veterans in the United States during January 2013, or 12 percent of all homeless adults. Just under 8 percent of homeless U.S. veterans are female. Texas, California and Florida have the highest numbers of unaccompanied homeless youth under the age of 18, comprising 58% of the total homeless under 18 youth population. Homelessness affects men more than women. In the United States, about 60% of all homeless adults are men.

Because of turnover in the population of people that are homeless, the total number of people who experience homelessness for at least a few nights during the course of a year is thought to be considerably higher than point-in-time counts. A 2000 study estimated the number of such people to be between 2.3 million and 3.5 million.

According to Amnesty International USA, vacant

houses outnumber homeless people by five times.

A December 2017 investigation by Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Report on extreme poverty and human rights, found that homeless persons have effectively been criminalized throughout many cities in the United States.”

Then there are the added market pressures of rising rents, ongoing gentrification of prime urban neighborhoods, and last but not least, laws that make it all but impossible for certain segments (over 30 million and counting) who are ex-felons, undocumented immigrants, and the ”Dreamers” born elsewhere but brought here as children, to obtain rental housing at any cost.

Considering that during the recent mid-term elections that many races were decided by margins of less than 5000 votes, and that our current president lost the popular vote by more than million votes. Imagine the impact if the majority of 500,000 to 3.5 million homeless, not to mention millions of others who have served full prison sentences who could not vote in the mid-term elections could have in 2020 should their voting rights be restored?

The fact that most poor, persons of color, and formerly incarcerated persons tend to vote heavily Democratic certainly scares the shit out of most Republicans currently in power. Yet, because they are on parole, probation, or live in states with lifetime exclusions from voter rolls, millions who have "served their time & debt to society" will be unable to vote in 2020. Note, however, the referendum that just passed in Florida restoring voting rights to over 1 million ex-felons who will be able to vote in 2020. Republicans in Florida certainly fear these voters, and rightfully so. There may never be a close election in the state again as these restored voters cast ballots in all future local, state, and national elections.

To that end, Florida Republican state legislators have recently penned laws that require and ex-felon to also have paid every dime of court costs or restitution before they have the right to vote again, which is just another example of a national trend of gerrymandering and other tactics to tilt the election tables in the direction of often minority-population Republicans in a municipality, voting district, congressional or senatorial district, or electoral college state.

According to 2013 statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Justice, there are more than 2.2 Million Americans in prisons or jail, and at that time 7 years ago over 4.7 Million on parole or probation. Considering those off parole living in the United States who have had voting rights permanently revoked (over 90% men and over 50% persons of color), the total then is still more than 7 Million adults with no voting rights.

Then consider an estimated 11 million undocumented workers living within our shores who are working in agricultural, construction and service jobs most American citizens refuse to do. Some have master carpenter and other construction skills but can't be hired by licensed contractors lacking a driver's license, the legal ID they must have to be eligible for hire.

These undocumented workers have income and social security taxes withheld but will never benefit from the money they pay in, lacking citizenship. These "undocumented" taxpayers have "taxation without representation", which in 1776 led to a well-known revolution against King George III of England. Most of these millions of human beings are not so different than you or I, but have neither citizenship nor legal ID's, nor voting rights. They can be legally rejected from safe housing for any number of reasons that they may have no present or future control over, no matter how hard working they are.

Or how much money they earn to pay rent for a home for themselves, their wives, and children to live a normal American life, the way all former immigrants and their descendants do, like my own 4 Polish Grandparents who came from Europe around 1910 and faced similar discriminations but worked their way into the American mainstream over time.

And unless you are at least 3% Native? YOU—. AND ALL OF YOUR FAMILY WHO CAME HERE SINCE THE MAYFLOWER STARTED OUT AS "UNDOCUMENTED" PERSONS!

Remember that every time you have anything negative to say about the 11 million undocumented persons living among us, or concerning our Muslim brothers and sisters and all of the refugees from wars elsewhere who are currently seeking asylum from war, disease, and death in their country of origin.

What, you may ask, do these statistics have to do with homelessness? Consider this article and the following excerpt:

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-incarceration-inti- mately-linked-new-federal-funding-available-reduce-harm/

“Homelessness is intimately linked with the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Almost 50,000 people a year enter homeless shelters immediately after exiting incarceration. And people returning from jail or prison face barriers to finding stable housing and employment due to legal restrictions and discrimination against those with criminal records.

People experiencing homelessness can also get pulled into the criminal or juvenile justice systems for misdemeanor offenses related to attempts to survive on the streets. They may be prosecuted for things like shoplifting or for publicly engaging in basic life activities like standing or sleeping — activities that would never be an offense when done in one’s home. The compounding effects of institutional racism result in the over-representation of people of color in the criminal justice system, which in turn pushes more people of color into homelessness."

Given that historically nearly ALL of these populations vote Democratic, it is easy to understand why Republican politicians, Fox News, and Wall Street Journal talking heads have advocated gerrymandering and complicated voting registration requirements since 1980 under the guise of "law & order", "just say no", and "lock’m all up."

These catch phrases have been the rallying cries of an ever more conservative, even radical Republican party at every level of government. And lest you accuse this author of bias, consider these facts, not the so-called "fake news" of today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_S-tates#Violent_and_nonviolent_crime

"The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate. In 2016 in the US, there were 655 people incarcerated per 100,000 population. This is the US incarceration rate for adults or people tried as adults. In 2016, 2.2 million Americans have been incarcerated, which means for every 100,000 there are 655 that are currently inmates. This costs the United States government $80 billion dollars a year to keep them all locked up. Money that if used to build rent-assisted housing would build tens of thousands of safe public housing.

Additionally, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 (1 in 51) were on probation or on parole. In total, 6,899,000 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2013 – about 2.8% of adults (1 in 35) in the U.S. resident population. In 2014, the total number of persons in the adult correctional systems had fallen to 6,851,000 persons, approximately 52,200 fewer offenders than at the year end of 2013 as reported by the BJS. About 1 in 36 adults (or 2.8% of adults in the US) were under some form of correctional supervision – the lowest rate since 1996. On average, the correctional population has declined by 1.0% since 2007; while this continued to stay true in 2014 the number of incarcerated adults slightly increased in 2014.

In 2016, the total number of persons in U.S. adult correctional systems was an estimated 6,613,500. From 2007 to 2016, the correctional population decreased by an average of 1.2% annually. By the end of 2016, approximately 1 in 38 persons in the United States were under correctional supervision. In addition, there were 54,148 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2013.

Although debtor's prisons no longer exist in the United States, residents of some U.S. states can still be incarcerated for debt as of 2016. The Vera Institute of Justice reported in 2015 that majority of those incarcerated in local and county jails are there for minor violations, and have been jailed for longer periods of time over the past 30 years because they are unable to pay court-imposed costs.

According to a 2014 Human Rights Watch report, "tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s, have filled U.S. prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that, as of the end of 2015, 54% of state prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year were serving time for a violent offense. Fifteen percent of state prisoners at year-end 2015 had been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious.

In comparison, 47% of federal prisoners serving time in September 2016 (the most recent date for which data are available) were convicted of a drug offense.This policy failed to rehabilitate prisoners and many were worse on release than before incarceration. Rehabilitation programs for offenders are proven to be more cost effective than prison. According to a 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, falling crime rates cannot be ascribed to mass incarceration."

Even though they live on the streets and sleep under bridges, in tents, parking garages, and any warm place with an open door at night, the homeless of Minneapolis are a very tight-knit community of "known" individuals recognized as part of a dynamic street family. And as is the case in all families, we daily take care of each other's needs. We will often give up our last cigarette, dollar, Ramen soup, coffee pack, shirt, socks, gloves, or hats to a brother or sister with a greater need than the giver.

Regardless of where you as a reader live, especially those of you who reside or work in the Twin Cities 7-county metro area, you have likely had some contact with our local and traveling homeless populations. At times you may have given up spare change or a dollar. Some of you have parted with more than a George Washington. Maybe even a Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, or a Ben Franklin. We homeless know our green dead Presidents and historical figures etched on our paper currency. Do you?

Believe it or not, if any honorable member of our Dinkytown street community would get the rare gift of a Ben Franklin, he or she would then break that $100 bill at the TCF bank or Target and share anywhere from $5.00-$20.00 each with several other "home bums" on the block.

This fact illustrates one of the many unwritten rules among most any local homeless community- all resources are shared. Those who scam and violate that rule are not only ostracized, but just might get an ass-beating from one of the more offended dudes who might be inclined to such vigilante measures among us.

This is also true for generous gifts large and small; from restaurant leftovers to a few cigarettes from the EgyptianTobacco store on 14th Ave. SE, or Target and food gift cards, hats, gloves, socks, blankets, and pillows- all gifts that the U of M students and Dinkytown tourists generously provide to the near-campus homeless community that tend to be widely shared with other known local "home bums."

As you delve into reading this book, it will generally alternate among three modalities. There will be fascinating profiles of up to 50 homeless from several sub-categories; old train hobos, younger train kids, rubber tramps (car-roving homeless), and the "home bums"- year-round locals. Some are seasonal homeless, some are "travelers", some are newly homeless and don't yet know how to cope and survive with their new set of circumstances.

Travelers usually head south in the winter, mid-south in the spring, and then north from mid-May until as late as mid-October. Memphis is popular in the Spring, and Minneapolis and specifically Dinkytown, is a famous destination for travelers, in part due to tradition and legend among them. Not only has Dinkytown been the site of student unrest dating back to the 1960s when Bob Dylan lived in an upstairs cold water flat on the corner of 4th St. SE and 14th Ave. SE (which today is The Loring Pasta Bar), but likely the large majority of the millennials who trod past that corner today have no awareness of that fact.

Most are likewise unaware of the musical and cultural significance of Bob's purchase of his first guitar in the space that today is the Dinkytown Starbucks, or that the "homeless wall" across the street on 14th Ave. SE borders the spot where Bob Dylan played numerous gigs at a long-ago demolished cafe. Or that Dylan busked on the street a few feet south of Al's Diner, a legendary local breakfast eatery in its 69th year that no doubt served more than one breakfast to a young Robert Zimmerman down from the Iron Range and Hibbing, Minnesota.

Bob, by the way, enrolled as a U of M freshman, pretty much refused to attend classes, essentially flunked out, and departed for New York's East Village where the rest, as they say, is history. There is still some debate about wether "Positively 4th Street" is about Dinkytown or New York City. However, local and national music historians agree that the Prospect Park "Witches Water Tower" near TCF Stadium was the inspiration for Bob writing "All Along the Watchtower. The iconic rock classic later made famous by Jimi Hendrix. There is a credible story that

Sometime during his failed freshman year, Bob came to read about Ken Kesey and the use of LSD 25 to alter one’s perception. The story goes that Bob, in his apartment above the now Loring Pasta Bar, put LSD into his eyes with a nose dropper, looked to the east, saw the “Witches Hat”water tower in Prospect Park, and penned “All Along the Watchtower”, which became and still is an iconic Jimi Hendrix recording.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Park_Water_Tower

In any event, there is presently a mural paying homage to Bob and the 4th Street song on 13th Ave. SE on the side of a soon-to-be-demolished building, as the unwelcome gentrification of Dinkytown continues.

Aside from mostly colorful forays into the characters and daily events during my months on the street, the second aspect of this book, as was originally intended when I made a decision to write it, is to function as a literal survival guide "how not to starve, get sick, get your ass beat (or worse), or sleep at least 4 hours a night in safety. Also how to not "get 86'd"- kicked out of every business on the block, and as a guide to the many nuances of living well while "home free."

In my very first contact with University of Minnesota Police, the two cordial officers asked that I provide their department with 100 copies when "Homeless in Minneapolis" is published so that they can hand it out to help any newly-arrived homeless to help them stay safe, be well, and blend in peacefully with the University community.

During that early encounter with the highly professional and cordial UMPD, once I explained "why I was sleeping and charging my phone on some random roofed porch on 5th St. SE" (embedded freelance journalist/author writing a book), we immediately entered into a discussion about the known local homeless. They knew "The Bard of Dinkytown" Michael McGovern, Jack Frost, the train kids, and others whom they only knew by their legal names, having arrested them more than once.

When I told them the street name (all homeless have one for many reasons) of a 30-something guy they only knew for years as Josh Poplanski, they nearly fell out.

Like many things both sad and comical among the homeless community, Josh is schizophrenic, addicted to cigarettes, coffee, weed, and maybe more. Like many hip-hoppers (which he is not), he "sags" his belted pants at all times only an inch or two above his knees, earning him the assigned street name of "Shitty Pants". On hearing that the two UMPD officers laughed their arses off. Then, they chatted about the street names of several other long-term homeless they only knew by their legal birth names. They knew the legal but not the street names of Jack Frost, Memphis, and New York Dave, Twist, Moochie, Stoner, and others who are 5-to-20 year veterans of the streets of Dinkytown, their beat.

That aside, even in the relatively safe and peaceful environs of Dinkytown and the well-policed and video-monitored campus area, survival is no joke. Especially on the worst bad weather days of the Spring, Summer & Fall during my two year adventure. And believe it or not, many were still on the streets during the -57 degree wind chill Polar Vor-tex of January, 2019, and 40-inch record snowfall month of February 2019.

Bug bites, raccoons, urban coyotes, feral dogs and cats, wild turkeys and even mountain lions are all potential live hazards within the city limits or near suburbs of both Twin Cities. Then consecutive 10 or more consecutive days of miserably cold rain, wind, snow, and ice that can cut to the very core of your being. Especially if you don't have proper clothing, rain gear, or a tent. The results can be life-threatening hypothermia, even sans frostbite that can occur below 32 degrees. Mother Nature knows no mercy for the uninitiated....

Most of the travelers and some of the home bums live under one of the several train bridges or in sidelined box cars in the nearby industrial urban rail yards of Dinkytown and the east bank of the Mississippi River. Locations that provide both shelter and proximity to the many necessary-to-survive resources that can all be found in or near Dinkytown. Furthermore, apparently dating back to the 60's through 80's, there was an Army surplus store in Minneapolis that provided full military back packs, boots, tents and a variety of survival gear to travelers and hobos, as they were called then. That word spread among the train hobos and train kids nationwide, who made a B-Line to camp under the bridges of Dinkytown and share in the local bounty.

Even though those accoutrements are no longer available, Dinkytown still has the most awesome discount liquor store in the United States, Dinkytown Wine & Spirits. Katie & Irv's place on the corner of 5th St. SE and 15th Ave. SE is a mecca not only for the transient and local homeless, but also for pretty much every U of M student who has ever trod the streets of Dinkytown since way "back in the day."

Lastly, this book will examine the causes and issues surrounding homelessness in the United States. It will advance ideas both large and small that may be examined by you as individual citizens and on a larger scale by our government officials and chartable organizations as possible solutions for this now massive societal problem. Like it or not, America's homeless are daily spilling into the streets of our rural communities, towns and cities across the land. I will do my best to keep my writing truthful and authentic, but at times it will be politically charged if not graphic in language to preserve its authenticity. It will also be touching, humanistic, surprising, and hopefully engaging, even enraging , but also frequently hilarious.

As for what else to expect within these pages?

Know that while there will be stories, moments, perspectives and facts that will be informative, make you pause, stir anger, or touch you with the compassion you might reserve for the dogs on the ASPCA Sara McLaughlin commercial. Some stories will make you smile, belly laugh or silently remark "hell no!"

My aim is to accomplish all of the above; to make you think, to make you feel, and hopefully reconsider the many highly erroneous stereotypes, aversions to, or fears you may have when encountering a homeless person.

There are two remarks thatI have heard on the street that made me re-examine my own perspectives.

"The people walking by us that act like we don't exist. Don't they realize we are often more afraid of them than they are of us?"

Sadly, you will read why within. And, as my friend Twist yelled at a rude passerby once...

"Hey dude! I'm a human being... so why are you treating me like a dog?"

Buckle up your proverbial seat belts readers. Be ready to assume a ringside seat for the "real shit", as my street compadres would call it. Part character and sociological study, part survival guide, part journalistic expose and political commentary, and part humorous peek behind the curtain in the land of Oz of the Homeless (though I am no wizard).

For this "50 Shades of Homeless" tome settle in with a cup of hot beverage, or your favorite legal one and read on. The largest factors missing in making progress on homelessness in America along with the opioid crisis, (the two largest domestic problems of our time) are education in objective facts (truth if you still believe in it) and engendering compassion for the homeless and the addicted. They ARE human beings just like you, and your children.

I firmly believe that a more accurate understanding of this most underserved segment and here-to-fore feared individuals in our society are just the unlucky ones who did not make it to their next paycheck in time to pay the rent or the bank. And, for may reasons, they continue to be denied the most basic human needs and rights by the world around them.

And so- Can you join me and those working on solving this most embarrassing problem of homelessness in the wealthiest country on our planet? We hope that, after reading this book, you will see homeless people and these issues in a different, more compassionate light.

One last word on my language and tone as I write. I have been recently inspired by reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love", her best-selling trilogy account of her embedded writer travel experiences through Italy, India, and Indonesia. She was purposeful in keeping her efforts fluid, conversational, and colloquial. Everyday, accessible language to draw the reader in to her experience as just another average person on a fantastic journey. I hope this book reads similarly.

In my recent book readings as a very similar-aged professional musician and producer, I was impressed by the authentic language used by Grammy-winning guitarist Steve Lukather in his memoir "The Gospel According to Luke" wherein he writes:

“Oh yeah, I swear a lot too. If you are offended by that, stop reading now. See, I wanted this book to sound like I am telling it, so I didn’t edit the way I speak. I come from a long line of angry men who shout and swear. There was my grandfather, Lee, my dad’s dad, and my dad, an ex-marine. Dad went into showbiz behind the camera just like Grandfather Lee, an assistant director/production manager. They yelled at people all day and my dad was never at a loss for words when pissed off at me or my sister.”

(Excerpted from: Steve Lukather. “The Gospel According To Luke.” iBooks. https:// itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-gospel-according-to-luke/id1419776046?mt=11)

Used by permission of the author. (?)

My Dad, Ed "Brassie" Zann was also an ex-marine Master Sergeant who never spared words for Paris Island recruits, yet never dropped an F-bomb in front of my mom. Luke makes a valid point. When I work with or produce fellow session musicians including guitarist Waddy Wachtel, and our mutually beloved bassist friend Leland Sklar- when we work or hang together or post and comment on our respective Facebook pages?

We share language habits 'refined" by long careers playing rock n' roll in bars supplemented by after show "hangs" back stage at club and concert venues or endless hours entertaining ourselves on tour busses. Like the language and stories told herein about my colorful friends on the streets of Minneapolis, it can get pretty hilarious as we "keep it real."

So- "Fuck it in a Bucket." If you want to learn what it's really like to live on the streets with nothing but your wits to survive, read on. If you want to come to know the hilarious and sometimes brilliant misfits who have become my new family this year, read on. And if you want to join those of us? Those of you with means, access, influence, and positions of power can help achieve a mutual goal...

To make Minneapolis the first city in America with no significant local homeless population. So please read on.

With wishes of Peace and One Love,

Zannman

Chapter 3: The Ethics, Vernacular, and Pragmatic Considerations of Living “Home Free” on the Streets of Urban America

And so now we shall time jump forward to mid-April of 2018, when my journey required me to put my possessions in storage while writing Homeless in Minneapolis from the only authentic viewpoint possible- that of living with very limited property and similar means as my homeless friends on the streets of Dinkytown and nearby Marcy-Holmes, where I had lived most of the previous 3 years.

Before I introduce you to several dozen fascinating members of the “Dinkytown Homeless Crew”, you will need to have more background information. It is a world not unlike daily living in an American county jail, work house, prison, halfway house, or mental institution....

But without guards and social worker or addiction counselor staff.

A bit crazy? Aye, that and quite a bit more....

Hence, join me to take a look deep inside where you must “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” as you take this journey “Down the Rabbit Hole” into planet Dinkytown. The one just below the surface you might see stopping in to get your coffee at the 14th Ave SE Starbucks, or corner Target, or your weekend family breakfast at the legendary Al’s Diner...

In order to understand what it takes to survive on the streets of Minneapolis or any other American town or city, I am going to ask my readers to consider what you read in the context of two relevant concepts: Maslov's Hierachy of Needs and the effects of the ever-widening gap of wealth and income between the richest and poorest Americans. Income inequality is a divide that began almost 100 years ago in 1928 and has progressed to where the wealthiest one percent of Americans own and control over 50% of the money, property, and valuable assets in The United States. An America where the former middle working class of the post-war era that prospered greatly from 1945-75 has been decimated by the greed and policies put into place by mostly Republican Presidents and Congress' since Ronald Regan.

Some three years later, using my mother's $70 a week pay from Sears, and my Dad’s $100 or so weekly take home pay, Marge & Brassie bought the house I am sitting in as I write this. The house, recently Zillow valued at around $60,000, was purchased for $10,000 and a house payment of $103 a month including Belmont County Real Estate taxes and full Homeowner's insurance. All for a housing cost of About 14% of their joint monthly family income.

Today? Housing costs in many markets are such that 100% of a two worker income, even if some work two and three jobs, doesn’t qualify to rent a one bedroom “gentrified” apartment that in Minneapolis can exceed $4000 a month if you rent on the upper floors of a Northest Minneapolis amenity laden high rise. One that features a game room with pool table, chess board, a sauna, Olympic swimming pool, arts & crafts room, sewing machines, writer’s private “pods”, a rooftop garden, community room, indoor parking, and even an outdoor 500 square foot dog walk!

Great if you are a tech, medical, or financial sector worker, a doctor, law partner, CEO or executive for Target, United Health, Medtronic, Wells Fargo, Boston Scientific, EcoLab, US Bank, ADM, Cargill, General Mills, or any of the myriad Fortune 500 company’s based in Minneapolis. But what if you are a single mother working less than 32 hours at Walmart with no benefits???

Consider the 2020 corollary; to now qualify for and rent or buy ANY ousting in Minneapolis, its suburbs, or “greater” (outstate) Minnesota....

Banks will lend you money or a landlord will rent you any apartment or house if your income is 300% of the PITI or rent. So consider me, a semi-retired independent, freelance business owner in Minneapolis in 2020.

I do work for either various kinds for barter or cash, but if I wanted to truly retire, and never work again... if I want to rent the average small studio apartment in Dinkytown, Marcy-Holmes, Northeast, Kenwood, LynnLake or Uptown- which are the safe Minneapolis neighborhoods where I have always lived?

That would be $750 to as much as $1500 a month and require that I make $1500 to as much as $4500 a month to "qualify" for a lease with first and last months rent, paid in cash upon signing a one year lease for up to $18,000 annually.

And that just to have keys to someplace to sleep and keep my shit indoors in a secured space with a kitchen and bathroom. Now my early retirement income, earned by working, paying taxes, and contributing to Social Security for 50 years is $986 a month. That is $11,832 per year in 2020, my "verifiable income" which qualifies me to rent or carry a mortgage of $321 a month. The only senior's or HUD section 8 housing that I can get at that price is subject to a waiting list of up to 5 years. And so, if I want to sign up today, and I live that long ( I’m currently 65), I can rent an apartment for $321 in 2024. But it won't have any of the "free" internet and other amenities of modern luxury living.

Yet any one with any common sense knows that nothing is free, and that the luxury, amenities-laden high rises being built in gentrified Northeast and Dinkytown Minneapolis are only affordable to the high tech, banking, and medical workers who are making $60,000-$100,000 a year, dropping $100 a night on bar bills, and $300 a month on Uber and Lyft to get their drunk or high asses home from the bar.

While McGovern, Jack Frost, Black Mike, Native Steve, Moochie, Roe, Beetlejuice, Twist, Zara, Chevy, Sean, G-Boy, Josh and the dozen or so other "Home Bums" of Dinkytown busk or panhandle for enough leftovers and cash each day to provide all with food, clothing, hygiene products, socks, hats, gloves, coffee, and maybe a bottle or can full of street pain relief.

Within one mile or a few city blocks apart you can see the richest and poorestAmericans living in two very different daily realities. In times past this extreme divide between the rich and poor has lead to events like The French Revolution, The Bolshevik uprising, and in Renaissance England a famous mythical or possibly real historical figure- Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. And that, after 90 some years of growing income inequality, THIS is where we have arrived in modern-day America.

And so... if you are poor and living on the streets lacking the most basic necessities of food, clothing, soap, a razor, a box of Tampons, a warm hat, gloves, or blankets. Is it ethical to become a "booster?". A petty thief stealing from wealthy, greedy corporations like Walmart, Target, Walgreen's, or Best Buy, to give to the homeless in need? You decide...

As you think about your answer consider the 2020 executive compensation for the CEO's of these American corporations:

Walmart- CEO Doug McMillon received $22.8 million in "total compensation" for the company's 2018 fiscal year that ended in January. The median salary for the other 2.22 million Walmart employees was $19,177. That is 1,188 times the salary of the average Walmart worker. A "total compensation" not 60 times like 1961 when the tax rate on the wealthiest was about 70%, and not todays tax law modified for three decades by Republicans that allow millionaires to pay essentially no tax.

20% of Walmart workers qualify for and use tapayer supported EBT "food stamp" benefits and Medicaid insurance to feed and care for their children. Which means not only does Walmart get the massive tax breaks that Trump ushered through Congress, but that American taxpayers... YOU... pick up the tab to feed and provide health care for over 2 million underpaid Walmart employees with no benefits.

Fuck you very much Walmart! Some of us love to boost from your stores. Your employees don't give a fuck how much merchandise our best street boosters walk out of your Walmart Super Centers with because they know your billionaire asses get rich by underpaying them.

Target? Brian Cornell, Target chairman and CEO? Total compensation: $19,153,827 for the year ended Feb. 3, 2018 with a salary of $1,300,000. Then, his Non-equity incentive pay was $4,836,000, and other compensation for who knows what was $263,208. Then his Value Realized on vesting shares: $12,754,619. CEO pay ratio: 408:1. Median employee pay: $20,581. But shop at Target. They are 3 times less greedy than Walmart and the Walton family.

Walgreens? Stefano Pessina doesn't draw a salary in his role as executive vice chairman and CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, but his fiscal year 2017 compensation nonetheless jumped by nearly 45 percent to $14.7 million. Pessina, a billionaire about a dozen times over, is paid entirely in stock based on the company's performance.

Best Buy- Hubert Joly CEO of Best Buy Co. Inc. The multinational retailer of technology products and services estimates that 70 percent of the U.S. population is within 15 minutes of its more than 1,500 stores. He earned more than $22.5 million in total compensation. Not bad considering that over 3000 homeless persons have phones stolen on the Greenline light rail sleeping at night and have to buy 3-5 new phones a year from Best Buy, Target, or some scammy phone repair shop like WOW or some pawn shop. How do you sleep at night Hubert?

And so, do not dare label my homeless booster friends as petty thieves and "criminals." The real criminals are the top executives of all of the above corporations earning 1000 times what they are worth! But white collar criminals, the Wolves of Wall street, never go to jail or prison. They can afford $500 an hour lawyers in Armani suits to keep them out of jail when they rip off old ladies 401k retirement funds by talking them into investing in Exxon. Or some soon to be bankrupt Trump or Jared Kushner Manhattan high rise or somebody's worthless Junk Bonds.

But Twist can get 90 days in county jail for boosting a hat, socks, and gloves not to get frostbite when its 20 below outside where he sleeps in some unheated parking garage.

So perhaps? God Bless our modern day Robin Hoods who make sure all of our street brothers and sisters have what they need to stay warm, safe, dry, and clean year round. And our best boosters have never been caught. Probably never will be. Their names don't matter here, but they know who they are and I love them for obeying Moses' and Christ's biblical admonition;

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.— Proverbs 31:8-9

“Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.— Proverbs 22:22-23”

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, "Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you"—when you already have it with you. — Proverbs 3:27-28”

“A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”

As for Maslov's Hierarchy of needs? If you are not familiar with it, it addresses the level of needs from physical, mental, emotional, to the highest spiritual aspirations that all human’s need or desire as we travel through our terrestrial life. The forces that motivates us as humans to reach higher stages of intellectual and spiritual development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs says:

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in the Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to in- clude his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. He then decided to create a classification system which reflected the universal needs of society as its base and then proceeding to more acquired emotions.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is used to study how humans intrinsically partake in behavioral motivation. Maslow used the terms "physiological", "safety", "belonging and love", "social needs" or "esteem", and "self-actualization" to describe the pattern through which human motivations generally move. This means that in order for motivation to occur at the next level, each level must be satisfied within the individual themselves.

Furthermore, this theory is a key foundation in understanding how drive and motivation are correlated when discussing human behavior. Each of these individual levels contains a certain amount of internal sensation that must be met in order for an individual to complete their hierarchy. The goal in Maslow's theory is to attain the fifth level or stage: self-actualization.

Maslow's theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality. The hierarchy remains a very popular framework in sociology research, management training and secondary and higher psychology instruction. Maslow's classification hierarchy has been revised over time. The original hierarchy states that a lower level must be completely satisfied and fulfilled before moving onto a higher pursuit. However, today scholars prefer to think of these levels as continuously overlapping each other.This means that the lower levels may take precedence back over the other levels at any point in time."

Below are two graphic expressions of what Maslov proposed and how sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers have modified its understanding over the past 65 years. Looking at the to model, I will expand.

Physiological. Without air we are dead in three minutes. Without water, especially in a desert, death can occur in less than three days. We can live without food for three weeks unless we have excess body fat, which can be burned to keep us alive for weeks, even months if one is morbidly obese. We all need to excrete piss fairly often and take a good shit or else the impacted bowel will turn gangrenous and we will die full of shit. Distasteful... but medically true.

If one were to think of how humans have lived for one million years, 99% of that time our ancestors only needed these basic low level needs and one more; PLEASURE. At any level of human development except maybe those fully self-actualized like Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and the Dali Lama, we all pursue pleasure in some form.

A slice of pie, a burger & fries, cheap Vodka, 420, music, masturbation, fine wine, cocaine, aged scotch, chocolate, a Netflix binge, dancing at a club, a music festival, travel, or intercourse....pleasures all...

In short? Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll. Which is why my actual primary talent and favorite job is musician, songwriter, music producer, and video director. If you are good enough at those things all the rest just happens. No college degree or $100,000 in student loans needed. Who doesn't want to hang out with Paul McCartney, Kieth Richards, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Billy Joel, Snoop Dog, Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Joni Mitchell or Amy Winehouse. But...fuck! She, like Curt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Mama Cass Elliot, and others were dead at 27..... Occupational hazard, I suppose...

Safety, from the viewpoint of a homeless person, is tantamount. Living on the street, where a warm, safe, dry space to sleep without being robbed, beaten, raped or harassed is the hardest thing to find. It amuses me when someone says "Why don't you go to a shelter?”

Well shelters, at least the majority that are not women’s or church sponsored throughout the United States, are places that you are most likely to get robbed, beaten, raped, or otherwise scammed. Only the worst of the worst "Bottom Feeders" among the homeless populate the over-crowded, underfunded shelters in the Twin Cities. However well-intentioned, the Salvation Army shelter near the Greyhound bus station is among the most sketchy.

Nobody wants to be attacked in their sleep. Or robbed. Or raped. Not even when you are awake. And so thats why we build houses, rent apartments, and if you are homeless you don't let anyone but your most trusted peeps know where you sleep or "keep your shit" that you don't or can't carry in your backpack.

But none of that means shit if you don't have your health and hopefully some decent medical insurance. Now we homeless in Minnesota are extremely lucky because if your income is less the 150% of the Federal poverty level you get fully paid Medical Assistance (aka MA or Medicaid). And thats just until the end of the

month you apply and are approved.

On the first of the following month you can choose from among a few plans, the best of which is Blue Plus, the “ObamaCare” offerings of Blue Cross/Blue Shield which pays for over $80,000 per year in medications I need for chronic psoriasis, neuropathy, a blown out knee, denture repair, prescription eye care, and my Bipolar meds. My copay? About $6 a month.

And once again you may ask "Why do you live in Minnesota...the weather...I couldn't take it".

Well maybe if you live in Louisiana, or Alabama, or some other state where they did not opt in to Obamacare and you would like to live a few more years? Fuck the cold. If you are poor by Federal standards, whereas the generous and the very “Christian”, or moral Muslims, Jews, Baha'i’s, Buddhist, and Hindi citizens of Minnesota practice what they preach.

They take care of the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, and the underserved Veterans. You can have insurance after you are here a verifiable 30 days and become a state resident. Minneapolis is even a sanctuary state for undocumented persons. Come on up...

As for love & family- Most of the Dinkytown homeless have some family somewhere in Minnesota, but due to their mental illnesses, alcohol, or drug addiction they are often disowned or at least not welcome by misunderstanding or self-righteous family. This especially true for periods of time that there is tension between them and parents, siblings or their grown children,who typically will either not communicate with their homeless family member or specifically ask them not to call or come around.

In all fairness, because many homeless develop serious addictions to opiates and benzo's, meth, Molly, G-Fast (also known as G), alcohol, plus non-addictive "420" (presently known as legal marijuana in more states every year), they are "unwelcome in polite company." Or just outright disowned by many blood relatives.

And so when I refer to my "Street Family" I am being literal. These people helped keep me alive, warm, fed, clothed and cared for at times when my own family (lacking accurate information about my health) didn't talk to me for up to four months during the writing of this book.

Esteem & Respect- One of my most ironic observations living on the street this past year is that many modern women have a dog instead of a husband, boyfriend, or children as would have been the case for most women between the ages of 15-40 during the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries. Rising life expectancy around the world means that who or what pet you choose for companionship as you live your adult years in a modern world is changing.

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

The visualization contained in this link shows the dramatic increase in life expectancy over the last few centuries. For the UK – the country for which we have the longest time-series? We see that before the 19th cen- tury there was no trend for life expectancy: life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years.

Over the last 200 years people in all countries in the world have achieved impressive progress in health that has lead to significant increases in life expectancy. In the UK, life expectancy doubled and is now higher than 80 years. In Japan, health started to improve later, but the country caught up quickly with the UK and surpassed it in the late 1960s. In South Korea health started to improve later still and the country achieved even faster progress than the UK and Japan, By now life expectancy in South Korea has surpassed life expectancy in the UK.

The chart also shows how low life expectancy was in some countries in the past. A century ago life expectancy in India and South Korea was as low as 23 years. A century later, life expectancy in India has almost tripled and in South Korea it has almost quadrupled. You can switch to the map view to compare life expectancy across countries. This view shows that there are still huge differences between countries: people in Sub-Saharan countries have a life expectancy of less than 50 years, while in Japan it exceeds 80.

Depending on how you look at it, Americans are getting married much later than their great-grandparents.

Consider the following article:

"Think We're All Getting Married Too Late?"

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/02/14/think-were- all-getting-married-super-late-think-again?

Everyone knows the average age of marriage is climbing. Young Americans are all waiting way longer than their parents and grandparents before getting hitched. Except that’s not entirely true. The Census Bureau recently put up a fascinating blog post turning the conventional wisdom about ever-delayed marriage on its head. First off, yes, we are all getting married later and later these days ... but only if you start measuring data from the 1950s. In fact, from 1890 to the mid-1950s, the median age of first marriage for men fell by roughly three years, and the median age for women fell by around two years, according to this chart.

This trend puts all that talk about how marriage ages are climbing into a new perspective, writes Jonathan Vespa, a demographer with the bureau.

“Looking at trends since 1890 reveals a U-shaped curve in which the 1950s and 1960s stand out as the exception for marriage, not the norm,” he says.

Today, it’s nearly two-thirds.The trends are similar for women, who once got married nearly halfway through their life spans, but today wait only about one-third of their lives. What it means is that even though Americans are getting married later than they once were, those marriages also can last much longer. It also means that the average single or married female and many young men as well take better care of their dogs (and cats) than their fellow human beings living on the street. And I find that a very sad fact...

If I did a GoFund me drive today with all proceeds going to the Hennepin County Animal shelter, I could raise $1000 on Facebook in a matter of a few days. Maybe even hours. Not so for homeless humans. If you own a pet, ask yourself why...

Now consider Self Actualization- Spiritual attainment, having knowledge of one's true self, one with the Ages, a personal experience with the oneness of all sentient beings, the mystical and magic, the Celtic Druid, the Native Shaman, the Rabbi, the Dali Lama, Abdul Baha (Gibran's inspiration for The Prophet), Christ, Moses, Mo- hammed, Buddha, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Mother Theresa, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandella, Malcom X, The Bab, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Fitzgerald and Bobby Kennedy, Abraham, Baha'u'llah, Tesla, Einstien, Elijiah, Oppenhiemer, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Elvis, Prince, MJ, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Peyote, 420, Nirvanna, DaVinci, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Ghengis Khan, The Samuri, Mark Twain, Shakespere, Queen Victoria, Cleopatra, Cyrus of Persia, Marco Polo, Lewis & Clark, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, George Washington, Pocahontas, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Sacagewea, Mo- hatma Ghaandi, Churchill, Wilson, FDR, Patton, Ike, Truman, William Wallace, John Snow, Callesi, The Imp, Ragnar, Rasputtin, Homer, Socrates, Kant, Ellie Wisel, Sigmund Frued, Machiavelli, Atilla the Hun, Julius Ceasar, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jimmy Carter.... men & women for the ages. These souls and ex- periences are what it means to be self-actualized, the highest form of Human Attainment.

Chapter 4- Meet the Home Bums

And Now..... for the most fascinating part of Homeless in Minneapolis. Meet my street family, the "home bums" of Dinkytown and neighborhoods nearby... I have debated over the past 15 months of knowing the various "humans" (as we self-ascribe in the Dinkytown and greater Minneapolis homeless community), whether or not to write this part of the book as a chronology of 500 days of day-to-day events, or as vignettes of the most fascinating homeless persons in my present orbit. And so.... because my goal is to fascinate, inform, entertain and create compassion among my readers???

free" (by choice in many cases), genius, comical bunch of misfits actually is...

They are a stew of alcoholics, ex-cons, meth heads, drunks (alcoholics go to meetings, drunks don't), jammers, scammers, loving human beings, generous souls, loyal friends to the end, and world-class street en- tertainers "in living color".

Here is the "real shit" as they would have me write it. . And so, for your reading pleasure, is the factual shit about a bunch of humans you should come down and meet on 14th Avenue SE., Dinkytown, Minneapolis sometime. You won't regret it.

I have decided to put the best first. In a somewhat "coolest and best" to "craziest and most fucked up" order. Here are their profiles as I see them. In my humble opinion these very unique individuals are doubtless the most fascinating "humans" among the dynamic, local Dinkytown homeless "dudes and bitches".

Having now had as many as 500 days of sharing both sufferings and joys with them, the lot (pieces of shit, vagabonds and heroes alike) are now my friends and ex- tended family for life.

First and foremost? BeetleJuice. Both indestructible and a heart of gold. Few, almost none. Have been as loyal and caring as Jacob BeetleJuice.

To begin to profile any of these complicated "humans", especially starting with Beetlejuice, I need to provide you, my readers, with some context. Some of the other names will be Michael McGovern aka. M.P.Mac, Aqualung, Chevy, Moochie, Roe, Native Steve, Angela, Isabella, Native Pat, Commadore, Jack Frost, Josh

Zara, Shitty Pants, Elijah, Twist Chain, Ross, Black Mike, Sean, Chris, Becky, James Semper Fi, Amigo, Dan Burg, Brian (B. of Nordeast), Mack, G-Boy, Buck Whitey, Walt god-dammit!, Blair, Abby, Bear, JoJo, Mr. T., Richard, Stoner, Hollywood, Memphis; all are awesome and edgy humans but most with good hearts...

Then there are the various unnamed Pieces of Shit known only for their fucked up dirty deeds who know all too well who they are... They get no mention by name here...

Upcoming Chapters?

The Survival Guide; How to live home free, where to get help, sleep safe, eat free or cheap, stay clean, get medical assistance, get resource info

The Hennepin County Libary System & the Homeless

The amazing people, resources, kindness, and compassion our libraries extend to the homeless

University Lutheran Church of Hope, The Basilica of

St. Mary/St. Vincent DePaul, St. Olaf's, St. Stevens

The works and programs of the incredible faith community benefitting the underserved

The Heroes?

Businesses and Non-profits that kept me and continue to keep me and my brothers and sisters on the street alive & well

The Homeless & The 5-0

How some of the best community policing in the country helps keep a balance between survival for the homeless and community safety needs. With special thanks to Lt. Cliff Toles, The 2nd Precinct, MPD, and UMPD.

On The Lammmm

24 Interesting days under the Radar

The Villains: Haters of the homeless named and called out for their prejudice and inhumanity

And more... stay tuned!

Flying a Sign- making cash on a off ramp or city street.

The Murder of Moochie McRunnell- “The king is Dead- Long live the King...”

And so many more engaging page turners..

On the Vernal Equinox- with wishes of Love & Peace to all...

Zannman

Chapter 4- The Ethics of Living Home Free

In order to understand what it takes to survive on the streets of Minneapolis or any other American town or city, I am going to ask my readers to consider what you read in the context of two relevant concepts: Maslov's Hierachy of Needs and the effects of the ever-widening gap of wealth and income between the richest and poorest Americans. Income inequality is a divide that began almost 100 years ago in 1928 and has progressed to where the wealthiest one percent of Americans own and control over 50% of the money, property, and valuable assets across our 50 sates. An America where the former middle working class of the post-war era that prospered greatly from 1945-75 has been decimated by the greed and policies put into place by mostly Republican Presi- dents and Congress' since Ronald Regan.

Consider this; on the day in January 1961 when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated, the average American CEO made about 60 times more than the average worker. My dad, then an in- dustrial mechanic at Ohio Ferro Alloys, brought home about $800 a month, had fully paid medical insurance for a family of four, paid union dues and was a stalwart union member of the United Steel- workers of America. Then a CEO made about $48,000 a month or about $600,000 a year in "total compensations" Three years later, along with my mother's $70 a week pay from Sears, Marge & Brassie bought the house I am sitting in as I write this for $10,000 and a house payment of $103 a month including Belmont County Real Estate taxes and full Homeowner's insurance. All for a hous- ing cost of 9% of their joint family income.

The 2019 corollary? Banks will lend you money or a landlord will rent you any apartment or house if your income is 300% of the PITI or rent. Now I do work of various kinds for barter and cash, but if I wanted to retire, never work again, and rent the average small studio apartment in Dinkytown, Marcy-Holmes, Northeast, Kenwood, LynnLake or Uptown- the safe Minneapolis neighbor- hoods where I have always lived? That would be $650 to as much as $1500 a month and require that I make $1900 to as much as $4500 a month to "qualify" for a lease with first and last months rent ($1300 to $3000) paid cash upon signing a one year lease for up to $18,000 just to have keys to someplace to sleep and keep my shit indoors in a secured space with a kitchen and bathroom.

Now my early retirement income, earned by working, paying taxes, and contributing to Social Security for 50 years is $972 a month. The $11,662 , my "verifiable income" qualifies me to rent or carry a mortgage of $321 a month. The only senior's or HUD sec- tion 8 housing that I can get at that price is subject to a waiting list of up to 5 years. And so, if I want to sign up today, and I live that long, I can rent an apartment for $321 in 2024. But it won't have any of the "free" internet and other amenities of modern luxury living.

But any one with any sense knows that nothing is free, and that the luxury, amenities-laden high rises being built in gentrified Northeast and Dinkytown Minneapolis are only affordable to the high tech, banking, and medical workers who are making $60,000-$100,000 a year, dropping $100 a night on bar bills, and $300 a month on Uber and Lyft to get their drunk or high asses home from the bar.

In times past this extreme divide between the rich and poor has lead to events like The French Revolution, The Bolshevik Rev-olution, and in Renaissance England a famous mythical or possi- bly real historical figure- Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. And that, after 90 some years of growing income inequality, is where we have arrived in modern day America. And so... if you are poor and living on the streets lacking the most basic necessities of food, clothing, soap, a razor, a box of Tampons, a warm hat, gloves, or blankets. Is it ethical to become a "booster?". A petty thief stealing from wealthy, greedy corporations like Walmart, Target, Walgreen's, Best Buy, to give to the homeless in need? You decide...

As you think about your answer consider the 2018 compen- sation for the CEO's of the above corporations:

Walmart- CEO Doug McMillon received $22.8 million in "total com- pensation" for the company's 2018 fiscal year that ended in Jan- uary. The median salary for the other 2.22 million Walmart employ- ees was $19,177. That is 1,188 times the salary of the average Walmart worker. A "total compensation" not 60 times like 1961 when the tax rate on the wealthiest was about 70% not todays tax law modified for three decades by Republicans that allow millionaires to pay essentially no tax. 20% of Walmart workers qualify for and use tax-payer supported EBT "food stamp" benefits and medicaid insurance to feed and care for their children.

Which means not only does Walmart get the massive tax breaks that Trump ushered through Congress, but that American Taxpayers pick up the tab to feed and provide health care for over 2 million underpaid Wal- mart employees with no benefits. Fuck you very much Walmart. We love to boost from your stores. Your employees don't give a fuck how much merchandise our best street boosters walk out of your Walmart Super Centers with because they know your billionaire asses get rich by underpaying them. Target-Brian Cornell, Target chairman and CEO? Total compen- sation: $19,153,827 for the year ended Feb. 3, 2018

Salary: $1,300,000. Non-equity incentive pay: $4,836,000. Other compensation: $263,208. Value realized on vesting shares: $12,754,619. CEO pay ratio: 408:1. Median employee pay: $20,581. Shop at Target. They are 3 times less greedy than Walmart and the Walton family. Walgreens- Stefano Pessina doesn't draw a salary in his role as executive vice chairman and CEO of Walgreens, but his fiscal year 2017 compensation nonetheless jumped by nearly 45 percent to $14.7 million. Pessina, a billionaire about a dozen times over, is paid entirely in stock based on the company's performance.

Best Buy- Hubert Joly CEO of Best Buy Co. Inc. The multina- tional retailer of technology products and services estimates that 70 percent of the U.S. population is within 15 minutes of its more than 1,500 stores. He earned more than $22.5 million in total com- pensation. Not bad considering that over 3000 homeless persons have phones stolen on the Greenline light rail sleeping at night and have to buy 3-5 new phones a year from Best Buy, Target, or some scammy phone repair shop like WOW or some pawn shop. How do you sleep at night Hubert?

And so, do not dare label my homeless booster friends as petty thieves and "criminals." The real criminals are the top execu- tives of all of the above corporations earning 1000 times what they are worth! But white collar criminals, the Wolves of Wall street, never go to jail or prison. They can afford $500 an hour lawyers in Armani suits to keep them out of jail when they rip off old ladies 401k retirement funds by talking them into investing in Exxon. Or some soon to be bankrupt Trump or Jared Kushner Manhattan high rise or somebody's worthless Junk Bonds.

But Twist can get 90 days in county jail for boosting a hat, socks, and gloves not to get frostbite when its 20 below outside where he sleeps in some unheated parking garage.

So God Bless our modern day Robin Hoods who make sure all of our street brothers and sisters have what they need to stay warm, safe, dry, and clean year round. And our best boosters have never been caught. Probably never will be. Their names don't matter here, but they know who they are and I love them for obey- ing Moses' and Christ's biblical admonition;

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.— Proverbs 31:8-9

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will ex- act life for life.— Proverbs 22:22-23

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, "Come back to- morrow and I’ll give it to you"—when you already have it with you. — Proverbs 3:27-28

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. As for Maslov's Hierarchy of needs? If you are not familiar with it, it addresses the level of needs from physical, mental, emo- tional, to spiritual that all humans need or desire as we travel through our terrestrial life. The forces that motivates us as hu- mans to reach higher stages of intellectual and spiritual develop- ment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to in- clude his observations of humans' innate curiosity.

His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. He then decided to create a classification system which reflected the universal needs of so- ciety as its base and then proceeding to more acquired emotions.

`Maslow's hierarchy of needs is used to study how humans intrinsically partake in behavioral motivation. Maslow used the terms "physiologi- cal", "safety", "belonging and love", "social needs" or "esteem", and "self-actualization" to describe the pattern through which human motivations generally move. This means that in order for motivation to occur at the next level, each level must be satisfied within the individual them- selves. Furthermore, this theory is a key foundation in understanding how drive and motivation are correlated when discussing human behavior.

Each of these individual levels contains a certain amount of internal sensation that must be met in order for an individual to complete their hierarchy. The goal in Maslow's theory is to attain the fifth level or stage: self-actualization."

Maslow's theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality. The hierarchy remains a very popular framework in so- ciology research, management training and secondary and higher psy- chology instruction. Maslow's classification hierarchy has been revised over time. The original hierarchy states that a lower level must be com- pletely satisfied and fulfilled before moving onto a higher pursuit. How- ever, today scholars prefer to think of these levels as continuously over- lapping each other.This means that the lower levels may take precedence back over the other levels at any point in time."

Below are two graphic expressions of what Maslov proposed and how sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers have modi- fied its understanding over the past 65 years. Looking at the to model, I will expand.

Physiological. Without air we are dead in a few minutes. With- out water, especially in a desert, death can occur in less than 24-72 hours. We can live without food for 14 days unless we have excess body fat, which can be burned to keep us alive for weeks, even months if one is morbidly obese. We all need to excrete: piss fairly often and take a good shit or else the impacted bowel will turn gangrenous and we will die full of shit. Distasteful but medically true.

If one were to think of how humans have lived for one million years, 99% of that time our ancestors only needed these basic low level needs and one more; PLEASURE. At any level of human de- velopment except maybe full self actualization like Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and the Dali Lama we all pursue pleasure in some form.

A slice of pie, a burger & fries, cheap Vodka, 420, music, masturbation, fine wine, cocaine, aged scotch, Game of Thrones, intercourse....

Who doesn't want to hang out with Paul McCartney, Kieth Richards, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Billy Joel, Snoop Dog, Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Joni Mitchell or Amy Winehouse. But...fuck! She's dead at 27..... Occupational hazard...

Safety From the viewpoint of a homeless person is tanta- mount. Living on the street, where a warm, safe, dry space to sleep without being robbed, beaten, raped or harassed is the hardest thing to find. It amuses me when someone says "Why don't you go to a shelter? Well, shelters, at least the majority are the place you are most likely to get robbed, beaten, raped, or otherwise scammed. Only the worst of the worst "Bottom Feeders" among the homeless populate the over crowded, under-funded shelters in the Twin Cities.

But none of that means shit if you don't have your health and hopefully some decent medical insurance. Now we homeless in Minnesota are extremely lucky because if your income is less the 150% of the Federal poverty level you get fully paid Medical As- sistance (aka MA or Medicaid). And thats just until the end of the month you apply and are approved.

` On the first of the following month you can choose from among a few plans, the best of which is Blue Plus, the offerings of Blue Cross Blue Shield which pays for over $80,000 per year in medications I need for chronic psoriasis, neuropathy, a blown out knee, denture repair, prescription eye care, and my Bipolar meds. My copay? about $6 a month.

And once again you may ask "Why do you live in Minnesota...the weather...I couldn't take it".

Well maybe if you live in Louisiana, or Alabama, or some other state where they did not opt in to Obamacare and you would like to live a few more years? Fuck the cold, if you are poor by Federal standards the generous, the very Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Ba- ha'i, Buddhist and Hindi citizens of Minnesota practice what they preach. They take care of the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, and the underserved Veterans. You can have insurance after you are here a verifiable 30 days and become a state resident. Min- neapolis is even a sanctuary state for undocumented persons. Come on up...

Love & Family- Most of the Dinkytown homeless have some fami- ly somewhere in Minnesota, but due to their mental illnesses, alco- hol, or drug addiction they are often disowned or at least not wel- come very often by family. This especially true for periods of time that there is tension between them and parents, siblings or their grown children,who typically will either not communicate with their homeless family member or specifically ask them not to call or come around.

And so when I refer to my "Street Family" I am being liter- al.These people helped keep alive, warm, fed, clothed and cared for at times when my own family (lacking accurate information about my health) didn't talk to me for up to four months during the writing of this book.

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

The visualization contained in this link shows the dramatic increase in life expectancy over the last few centuries. For the UK – the country for which we have the longest time-series – we see that before the 19th cen- tury there was no trend for life expectancy: life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years.

Over the last 200 years people in all countries in the world achieved im- pressive progress in health that lead to increases in life expectancy.

In the UK, life expectancy doubled and is now higher than 80 years. In Japan health started to improve later, but the country caught up quickly with the UK and surpassed it in the late 1960s. In South Korea health started to improve later still and the country achieved even faster progress than the UK and Japan; by now life expectancy in South Korea has surpassed life expectancy in the UK.

The chart also shows how low life expectancy was in some countries in the past: A century ago life expectancy in India and South Korea was as low as 23 years. A century later, life expectancy in India has almost tripled and in South Korea it has almost quadrupled.

You can switch to the map view to compare life expectancy across coun- tries. This view shows that there are still huge differences between coun- tries: people in Sub-Saharan countries have a life expectancy of less than 50 years, while in Japan it exceeds 80.

Depending on how you look at it, Americans are getting married much earlier than their great-grandparents. Then consider the following article:

"Think We're All Getting Married Too Late?"

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/02/14/think-were-all-getting-married-super-late-think-again

Everyone knows the average age of marriage is climbing. Young Americans are all waiting way longer than their parents and grandpar- ents before getting hitched. Except that’s not entirely true. The Census Bureau recently put up a fascinating blog post turning the conventional wisdom about ever-de- layed marriage on its head.

First off, yes, we are all getting married later and later these days ... but only if you start measuring in the 1950s. In fact, from 1890 to the mid-1950s, the median age of first marriage for men fell by roughly three years, and the median age for women fell by around two years, ac- cording to this chart. This trend puts all that talk about how marriage ages are climbing into a new perspective, writes Jonathan Vespa, a de- mographer with the bureau.

“Looking at trends since 1890 reveals a U-shaped curve in which the 1950s and 1960s stand out as the exception for marriage, not the norm,” he says.

Still, it is undeniable the median age of first marriage is later now than it was in 1890. But you could count another way: When you look at the age of first marriage compared to life spans, Americans are getting married earlier than they were in the late 19th century. The below chart shows that men in 1890 were married for less than half of their lives. Today, it’s nearly two-thirds.The trends are similar for women, who once got married nearly halfway through their life spans, but today wait only about one-third of their lives.

What it means is that even though Americans are getting married later than they once were, those marriages also can last much longer. It also means that the average single or married female and many young men as well take better care of their dogs (and cats) than their fellow human beings living on the street. And I find that a very sad fact...

If I did a GoFund me drive today with all proceeds going to the Hennepin County Animal shelter, I could raise $1000 on Face- book in a matter of days. Maybe even hours. Not so for homeless humans. If you own a pet, ask yourself why.....

Self Actualization- Spiritual attainment, having knowledge of one's true self, one with the Ages, a personal experience with the oneness of all sentient beings, the mystical and magic, the Celtic Druid, the Native Shaman, the Rabbi, the Dali Lama, Abdul Baha (Gibran's inspiration for The Prophet), Christ, Moses, Mo- hammed, Buddha, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Mother Theresa, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandella, Malcom X, The Bab, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Fitzgerald and Bobby Kennedy, Abraham, Baha'u'llah, Tesla, Einstien, Elijiah, Oppenhiemer, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Elvis, Prince, MJ, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hen- drix, Peyote, 420, Nirvanna, DaVinci, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Ghengis Khan, The Samuri, Mark Twain, Shakespere, Queen Vic- toria, Cleopatra, Cyrus of Persia, Marco Polo, Lewis & Clark, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, George Washington, Pocahontas, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Sacagewea, Mo- hatma Ghaandi, Churchill, Wilson, FDR, Patton, Ike, Truman, William Wallace, John Snow, Callesi, The Imp, Ragnar, Rasputtin, Homer, Socrates, Kant, Ellie Wisel, Sigmund Frued, Machiavelli, Atilla the Hun, Julius Ceasar, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jimmy Carter.... men & women for the ages.

These souls and experiences are what it means to be self-actualized, the highest form of Human Attainment.

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The following chapter is an advance except from “Homeless in Minneapolis “ inspired by a mother of a homeless man. Peggy reached out to me on Facebook and I answered her questions born of exasperation trying to help her son and not knowing if she was truly helping or simply enabling him to continue in his addictions and harmful behaviors. Evaluating how to help the homeless individual you know and care about often encompasses an understanding of multiple exacerbating issues that when overlaid are a puzzle fit for Einstein to untangle and solve.

Please read, comment freely or email your comments to me at zannman@me.com: When you have time, please read this first of many edited chapters I will post for you to enjoy over coffee or your next break fom our often stressful lives...

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Chapter 5- For the Families, Friends, and Supporters of the “Unsheltered” Person in your World

Dear Readers: I want to start this chapter with excerpts of a conversation I had with an affected Facebook friend, Peggy... her query about her homeless addicted son inspired both the need and my thoughtful exploration of issues that all families of homeless persons struggle with. Please read on...

Peggy to Zannman: “I want to read your book. My son was homeless during the winter several years ago. He had sobriety issues, and mental health problems. I took him in.

First we soaked his feet to warm them, then I applied salve and bandages. I cooked a good meal and sent him to bed.We started talking about his situation the next morning and he promised me that he would have a job in two weeks. I finally said yes.

Two weeks turned into 1 1/2 years. During that time he stole my car, overdosed three times, lived in four different treatment facilities and is now at a sober house.

So did I help him, or enable him? He seems more stable at the moment, but says he wants to move into his own apartment and get a higher paying job. He is not very responsible and loses things like credit cards every week. He often asks for my opinion so I give it. I don’t think he should move until he can save first for a car. Then he’ll have to save up for all the moving expenses, too.

Am I setting enough boundaries for my son who turns thirty-three in October?!”

Zannman to Peggy: “With an addict it is right to help, especially your son,but you need to accept that an addict would steal from a grandmother for the next fix and until and each time ( yes most relapse) he emerges from treatment ( or jail... let that happen if his mistakes earn it) or he will not get to “ sick and tired of being sick and tired”.

Did you know that not only can you become a paid personal care attendant for him but that Hennepin or Ramsay County Family Court could appoint you as “Gaurdian ad Litem” giving you the power to control his bank deposits, put him on a weekly cash allowance, perhaps on replaceable gift cards if they are lost or stolen, and not only pay his bills but make and attend doctor appointments as an authorized medical representative. You can also be granted powers of attorney by the court to do most anything that is official, financial, legal and requires a stable, concerned adult other to do to protect him from his own mental illness, erratic behaviors, and inability to presently or perhaps ever manage independent living in any environment?

Peggy, the mental health piece is all best treated by modest meds unless it’s schizophrenia which requires stronger antipsychotics. Has he been diagnosed or ever medicated?

Sometimes mild anti anxiety meds or those that treat mild depression or now medical ( or even self-administered) marijuana has shown promise with certain patients. Again if you become an aware pragmatic realist and your son is NOT on meth, heroin, or opioids ( those are not home treatable addictions) there is hope and love and promise.

Almost all addictions ( even food, anorexia, bulemia) are self medication of either a genetic mental illness ( bipolar, depression, anxiety, OCD, or schizophrenia most commonly), or desperation to treat some trauma like sex or physical abuse, or to kill the pain of life on the street with little or no warm, safe or dry respite or hope for the means or opportunity to escape homelessness.

And dont naively ask me about most (not all) homeless shelters like The Salvation Army shelter by the Greyhound station. It and many shelters located in the sketchiest parts of town are nothing but a den of thieves; the worst most unscrupulous ex-cons and grifters just looking for the next vulnerable, unaware new homeless resident. Theft, rape, fights, threats- all a daily event at the hardest core homeless shelters of last resort. At the other end of the spectrum is St. Stephens, an exemplary but hard to get into shelter of the highest, most compassionate order.

In all, I strongly suggest that you talk to a professional or qualified volunteer. A social worker or social justice volunteer who has regular contact with your local homeless population. Or talk with a trusted compassionate adult ( I suggest a pastor who works with at risk populations- ask your own pastor who they know). Due to issues of credibility and trust, your homeless person will sooner be reached by an ex-con or an addict before a useless one-time appointment with a talk therapist for $120 most families can’t afford.

Peggy, your question actually identified an omission in my book. I am going to start with my replies to you, copy paste them into my book writing software (Werdsmith- 5 star rating . It is better than MS Word and it’s FREE). You have raised my awareness that there is no such thing as a support forum for families of homeless sons, daughters, siblings, grandchildren. Homelessness, as you know so well, is infinitely more complex and varied to encounter than just one issue.

At its root it is a housing problem dating back decades to the Reagan era when cutting entitlement benefits, medical care, closing mental health care facilities and a rallying cry of “lock em all up” was not just a solution for violent hard core crime, but mental illness , drug possession ( not for sale just prison or jail for having a joint, glass pipe, or rolling paper) or tossing any undesirable that a local control-freak law enforcement officer cares to charge anyone with just to cuff and stuff them.

These are among the variety of Draconian measures to sweep the poor and vulnerable under the carpet. The result over time is what scholars call “The American Gulag.””

Peggy replied: Chris Zann thank you Chris!

You are quite an inspiration!

Zannman to Peggy: “In 2020 we have some 3 million in jail and prison, 70% there for parole or probation violations like getting drunk, smoking weed, trespassing, shoplifting a ramen soup or hygiene items they have no money for, all just to perpetuate criminal justice JOBS! Police, probation officers, criminal lawyers, courtroom clerics, corrections officers and administrators, food service and greedy jailhouse phone providers—- every courthouse employee relies on keeping the jails and prisons full to earn a paycheck. When the coal mines shut down in Appalachian Ohio, the state built multiple new corrections facilities ( there are almost 40 prisons in Ohio holding about 40,000 inmates tonight).

And the mostly “law & order” republican politicians took credit for bringing “living wage jobs “ to the poorest rural counties in America. And if you bring up Private “prisons for profit” enabled by the slavery clause embedded in the 14th Amendment? Yes- slavery is STILL legal in America if one is “In the custody of the state”. As are 5 times more black and other inmates of color than white Americans, but even white inmates- millions of them, are slaves farmed out for menial labor (not just stamping license plates) at hundreds of our country’s jails and prisons.

It’s why Bernie’s pledge to reform the criminal justice system is so passionate and suggests we only keep the most violent and unredeemable felons where they belong- not a father who cant find a job to pay child support or a college kid who in a traffic stop had a bag of weed and a glass pipe, or the dude who opened his Four Loco driving home for a sip and got cuffed for an open container law (which does not exist in Texas where you can drive with an open beer if not .08 drunk).

The long term problem? The average inmate serves about 2.5 years for dozens of new felonies that didn’t used to be felonies. Non payment of child support , third DUI within 10 years... believe or not outdoor urination is a SEX OFFENSE requiring predatory offender registration for years. Why does all this matter as regards homelessness? Because in Minnesota and many states landlords can search criminal histories without limit!!! And reject applicants without being accused of discrimination.

Estimates are that up to 80% of America’s homeless are either mentally ill, ex criminal offenders (often for petty crimes that years ago were not crimes), or both. And it’s getting worse because every year the criminal justice machine consumes another promising life that could have responded to treatment not punishment!!! And with 2 million inmates put back on the streets every year, the attendant social ills multiply- addiction, homelessness, poverty, racial profiling, petty crime done by humans desperate to survive and often not afforded the compassion of a dog in a pound. Sad but very true... so while it’s all fresh in my mind, I shall write on...

A caveat here; it is the criminal justice system as a whole that perpetuates the worst practices and certain but not all conservative politicians making excessive laws in the quest for votes. Many within and tangent to the system are individual advocates and heroes. Officer Cliff Toles for exemplary community policing, Senator Amy Klubochar for pursuing reforms like drug courts and having a willingness to freshly investigate and reopen cases of questionable integrity that have unjustly incarcerated innocents. Many are often persons of color charges in cases based on circumstantial evidence, less than credible jail house informants, errant eye witness testimony, vindictive perjured testimony by jilted lovers or ex-spouses. Also evidence planted or destroyed or withheld from investigations and trials by rigid rules of evidence, clever jailhouse interrogators, or aggressive, over-jealous prosecution tactics.

Senator Bernie Sanders has made criminal justice reform a major component of his platform in his quest to be our next president. Congress members Maxine Waters, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, my State Senator Kari Dziedzic and Minority Speaker of the MinnesotaSenate John Marty, and Mohammed Noor are among those I know personally who are among the strongest advocates of fixing what I can only call “Bad laws” affecting Minnesotans, especially those in prison or on probation or parole.

Sometimes well-trained officers are in the best position- out in the streets on the front lines of human conflict, to do the right thing during most encounters with homeless persons and other who “look homeless” but often are not and just being judged for their clothing or poor personal hygiene. Or just being an adult carrying a backpack that does not look like a student or office professional.

Also great leaders and leadership like our current police chiefs in MInneapolis and St. Paul has much to do with the relatively fair and treasonable treatment of our Home Bums and unshel. Especially Minneapolis Chief Medaria Aradondo who has during his tenure transformed the way officers are trained. He and Mayor Jacob Frey have created a special position for a Sergeant to act as the department’s official liason to the homeless community at large and policy making concerning MPD’s treatment of unsheltered individuals citywide.

And so now,I’m off to write a chapter that will probably be something like: “Support for the Parents, Siblings, Grandparents, and friends of the Homeless.“

Peggy please PM me your email to send you the full excerpt. It will only take a few days to pen. Two years in the streets has taught me much. Time to share more specifics for the greater good and when the book comes out, to found an online support forum for families of the homeless... God Bless your inspiring question here!”

And now, even more about what a family member or concerned friend needs to know to truly help a homeless person to a better safer place; which is not always a welcome back home invitation or agreement, but at times needs to be “when you can be trusted and respect the rules of my home, we can talk about a stay being a bridge to something more stable.”

Which might be a stay with another relative at lower risk, outpatient or inpatient addiction treatment, even time in jail if there are outstanding warrants or pending legal issues.

Yes, it’s dauntingly complicated, but the first step is a hard core look at the state of your homeless family member. If left on the street will they fall ill or die? Is there an addiction problem greater than alcohol? If yes to Meth aka “Go Fast”, Heroin, opioids or even Saboxone or methadone maintenance being used ( which are just controlled addiction to stave off withdrawal or enable a slow tapering off the street drug), leave it to degreed treatment professionals and medical care.

After I finish writing this chapter tonight I am going to start a private Facebook group page to be the support forum I will moderate with occasional guest contributions by very long term “homeless by choice” survivor friends among my Dinkytown “Home Bums.” All will be welcome to confidentially share stories and solicit input from others walking in your shoes as a caring but befuddled family member or concerned other.

It is critically important that you as a concerned support person recognize when the current state of the person you want to help can only be helped by a trained professional addiction counselor.

I can, from long term personal experience, endorse Meridian’s out patient or coordinated inpatient programs, as well as Resource Recovery Center (RRC) at 1900 Chicago Ave. (In the Phillips/Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis).

In rare cases of means, there is also Hazelden, the recovery program used by multiple celebrities including Robin Willams among others, but the patient’s insurance or family need to be able to afford the $20,000+ a month cost. Additionally, Fairview University West Bank Hospital , where there is even a managed “moderate use” alcohol treatment program, is worth contacting to find a compassionate program and available treatment bed (It can be weeks or months after application to any program for a bed or outpatient group to have room).

While I am no professional I am going to weigh in here:

If anything, moderate and reasonable use of marijuana, legit CBD derivatives (as in go to Colorado, Michigan, DC, Washington, California, or some state that sells regulated, authenticated cannabis products may be part of the answer to underlying issues, anxieties, chronic pain, and other treatable conditions. Strictly avoid cheap CBD fakes, clones, or anything referred to as K2).

These have been proven by extensive research to do more good than harm in the treatment of multiple addictions, OCD, and various mental health conditions. In other words if your homeless one smokes weed or wants to, let them source it and send them to the garage to smoke it.

Trust me, between the psychology of the user and their willingness to abide by boundaries you set will be greatly aided by your compassionate flexibility. Unless smoked in ridiculous excess, I believe personally that marijuana’s benefits to mental and physical disease patients far outweigh its potential risks. In any case, please consult a competent professional- doctor, certified addiction counselor, pastor or volunteer street team advocate who work daily with the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted populations before making any decisions about rules and boundaries to give your homeless person a bridge to a better, safer, future situation. Disclaimer: In offering my considered personal opinion on matters of drug or alcohol use by others, I am not responsible how any party applies my suggestions or specific recommendations for professional help.”

As for alcohol use? The majority of the Minneapolis Homeless deal daily with the most volatile weather in populated America. If you were sweating profusely outside in August with nowhere to enjoy some air conditioning, would you want a beer or icy Four Loco from Dinkytown Wine & Spirits?

If you were freezing on the sidewalk and could only eat by flying a sign to find a few few compassionate others, would you enjoy the warmth of an Irish Coffee or a warm brandy shot down your throat.

Because the rich students spending mom and dads credit cards or massive student loans on beer, booze and hot toddies at Blarney Pub, the Kollege Klub, The Varsity, The Loring, and the Kitty Cat Lounge are warm safe and dry getting drunker than BettleJuice or Josh can afford to do with the meager charity on the street— especially on the worst cold rainy or winter days.

Sooooooo......How about don’t judge and just stop and offer your spare change, a dollar, or a warming calming cigarette to the people in the 14th Ave SE Bum Pile? Or dont buy a beer or shot the next time you stop at happy hour because if providing a homeless person with a bit of liquid cheer bothers you and you drink? I think hipocracy may be an issue with anyone who doesn’t want “the bum” to use their donated dollar for a 99 cent whiskey shot.

End of Sermon on Devil Booze...

How can I actually help any homeless person I encounter Zannman?

How about a smile that says “ I can’t help today, but here are my leftovers”, or “Can I buy you gloves, socks, or a hat that is warmer at Target?”. Or “let me look in my closets at home and bring the clothes I or my family don’t wear and leave them in the Red Box by the homeless wall across from the Dinkytown Starbucks.”

Or just put them on the wall by the red box on a dry day and one of the 50 or more homeless passing by will use them or take them to a homeless comrade in need. Spare change, a dollar, a gift card for Target, or food, or even the $5 you were gonna spend on an exotic drink at Starbucks or the Insomnia Cookies your diet can do without might buy dude or old girl some new warm, dry socks...

Simple, direct, compassionate. So- really ask yourself: “If that were a freezing cute dog on the sidewalk what would I do?” Well folks- that is a fucking Human Being you are walking by as if they don’t exist. Please STOP THAT SHIT!

Enough for now. For more please search and visit the Facebook pages “Homeless in Minneapolis” or the “Minnesota Support Forum for Families and Friends of the Homeless.” Both are searchable under the pages tab on Facebook, and I admin both pages.

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Chapter 6: Meet the Home Bums- The Major Domo’s

I have debated over the past 24+ months of knowing the various "humans" (as we self-ascribe in the Dinkytown and greater Minneapolis year-round homeless community), whether or not to write this part of the book as a chronology of 500 days of day to day events, or as vignettes of the most fascinating homeless persons in my present orbit. And so.... because my goal is to fascinate, inform, entertain and create compassion among my readers???

I settled on writing about the people. Because they matter more than the sometimes mundane, hilarious, tragic, and boring events of life on the street. Which is much the same in about every city and town, large and small in America. Also because I felt a need to let the world know how awesome this vagabond group of "home free" (by choice in many cases), genius, comical bunch of misfit alcoholics, ex-cons, meth heads, drunks (alcoholics go to meetings, drunks don't), jammers, scammers, loving human beings, generous souls, loyal friends to the end, and world-class street entertainers are "in living color".

Here is the "real shit" as they would have me write it. And so, for your reading pleasure, is the uncensored shit about a bunch of humans you should come down and meet on 14th Avenue SE., Dinkytown, Minneapolis sometime. You won't regret it. At the very least they have good jokes and smiles for all..

I have decided to put the best first. In a somewhat "coolest and best" then randomly to "craziest and most fucked up" order. Here are their profiles as I see them. In my humble opinion these very unique individuals are doubtless the most fascinating "home bums" among the dynamic, local Dinkytown homeless "dudes and bitches".

Having now had as many as 500 days of sharing both sufferings and joys with them, the lot (pieces of shit, vagabonds and heroes alike) are now my friends and ex- tended family for life.

To begin to profile any of these complicated "humans", especially starting with BeetleJuice, I need to provide you, my readers, with some context.

There are so many others- Michael Patrick Joseph McGovern aka M.P. Mac, Aqualung, Chevy, Moochie, Roe

Native Steve, Angela, Isabella, Native Pat, Commadore Jack Frost, Josh, Zara, Shitty Pants, Elijah, Twist Chain, Black Mike, Sean, Chris, James Semper Fi, Amigo, Daniel Burg, Brian (B. of Nordeast), Mack, G-Boy, Buck Whitey, Walt god-dammit!, Blair, Abby, Bear, JoJo, Mr. T., Richard, Stoner, Hollywood, Memphis, and a few interations of Tony.

Plus various unnamed Pieces of Shit known only for their fucked up dirty deeds who know who they are and shall go unmentioned herein.

But BeetleJuice has become my very best Bestie on the Streets of Minneapolis and beyond where we have trekked together. So without further adieu..

BEETLEJUICE- “There are wars and rumors of wars...”

My first encounter with BeetleJuice was almost not very pleasant. He said he wanted to kill me based on some of several questionable street rumors about me. But alas, the person who started that rumor corrected it in time, and so I’m still quite alive. BeetleJuice only uses violence in the vigilante sense to right a wrong to someone else, but as a sharp shooter who can hit a sniper target at 1200 yards, and who once, with four taser darts in him, still managed to whoop ass on a half-dozen Minneapolis police officers before they got him in hand cuffs. Probably not the guy you want to be hunting you down with ill intention.

He came to be known as BeetleJuice because some years ago he went on a meth binge and stayed up for more than three or four days before getting hauled off to Hennepin County jail. By then he had pronounced black circles under his eyes and his fellow inmates in the jail pod christened him (as jailed dudes so often do to newcomers) as “BeetleJuice.” If you are too young to get the movie reference, you need to watch the 1988 Johnny Depp classic by the same title. In short, BeetleJuice was a fictional character with Raccoon eyes.

These days you can typically find him on the sidewalk outside the awesome tobacco shop on 14th St. SE, or at the Starbucks down towards Target, or on the “homeless wall” across from the Starbucks. He is so well known to the local MPD and UMPD that they seldom bother to arrest him- even if they know he has some extraneous arrest warrant or smokes some weed or drinks “in public.” Why? Simply because he is BeetleJuice! Known, respected, usually harmless, but known to meat out some street justice that our officers dare not with body cams taping everything they do. Beetle often fucks up those who are more than deserving after a warning- or not.

I don’t know how long BeetleJuice has been homeless. At forty-something maybe 10 or more years. He often gets frustrated and screams “I just want to die!” But he is so invincible I don’t think bullets, knives, or COVID-19 can do him in. Somewhere along the line a Somali Muslim tried to steal his .mp3 player while he was sleeping on the sidewalk at “his spot” - the sidewalk “cut” (roofed indentation) out of the rain and snow in front of the former Vescio’s Italian eatery. He stirred to stop his attacker, but the assailant hit hin squarely in the skull with a tire iron, creating permanent brain damage that BeetleJuice survived with a huge dent in his cranium.

But after that, his IQ went UP to welll over genius. My guess it somewhere over 200. He can now do a number of amazing things including build motorized bikes using 2-cycle lawn mower engines and almost any bike frame. They are compression start like some very high end Harley’s and B&W’s, and can go in excess of 40 miles an hour on city streets. He recently reclaimed one of his best iterations after Moochie died. That was the first one I saw rolling down the street with Moochie riding it wearing his signature Tartan Kilt with a leather “Beer Flap.” More on Moochie very soon....

One of the things I became known for from 6am to 10am or so on 14th Ave SE was as “the purveyor of free coffee.” A must have beverage for the early rising home bums, most especially Jack Frost, the most addicted coffee hound. At that hour BeetleJuice would still be sleeping, invisible under quilts and blankets with a knit cap over his head and eyes. I’d just lay a medium Stabuck’s Pike Place next to him and announce “Coffee Beetle” and the local time. He’d get up some time after that- maybe 15 minutes, maybe 4 hours... and we would convene and discuss the last day or week of people and events among the home bums of Dinkytown.

In time we became the best of friends, as he is the most loyal and trustworthy (the rare set quality) among the locals. So much so that when I decided to take an Amtrak break form the rigors of street life, I bought him a companion ticket to Pittsburgh through Chicago in May of 2019. We had an absolute blast of an adventure. I stopped to visit a former train mate I met coming back the other way. She was a bar maid in LaCrosse, Wisconsin in one of its 90 or so college bars, but seemed to ghost me. But we had a great time meeting the local homeless there who hung out at night in the dumpster bins and under the bridge nearest the LaCrosse Amtrak station.

BeetleJuice almost fell in love with one of the local ladies, but alas, after almost three days stranded we caught The Empire Builder to Chitown.

Of course, its always fun on a road trip. The train that got out the fuck out of LaCrosse had a breakdown somewhere in Montana. The result is that it had been re-outfitted with a freight engine that could only go a max of 60 mph, not the 120 mph that Amtrak’s Streamliner engines could on open track. Result? We missed our Chicago to Pittsburgh connection on The Capitol Limited and were put up in the VIP courtesy lounge in Chicago’s Union station for 22 hours of free food, drink, and TV. Not so bad... And we only had to walk 4 blocks down Jackson St. to get booze at the 7-11, and went Nordstroms Rack shopping for some new clothes, sunglasses, and the green roller suitcase I now use on every Amtrak excursion.

On to Mom’s in Ohio for the next 4 weeks, we took the time to repaint the front and back of Mom’s house and clean years of dead growth and landscape her modest working-class yard in Appalacian Belmont County, Ohio. Mom has two couches and BeetleJuice was welcome to sleep and shower indoors daily and nightly for our stay, but is had been so long since he slept on anything soft, he ended up sleeping on the back porch almost every Summer night we sojourned at Mom’s house.

That was11 months ago in the Summer of 2019. The era of “before COVID-19. Carefree days. Really.

When we arrived in Pittsburgh Beetle went to work flying one of his many entertaining signs outside the Greyhound Station on Liberty Avenue while I drifted off to the Starbucks across the street for some cofee and laptop time catching up on email, FaceBook, and journaling notes for expansion for this book.

As I sat at the front window a very pregnant young woman approached me with a request. Samantha had accompanied her niece back to Pittsburgh from New Mexico, but was stranded awaiting her return Amtrak trains for a day or more and asked if I would watch over her as a brother bodyguard until the station opened again (it is close from 7:30 AM until 11pm when no trains are due). Of course I said yes. And for the next many hours BeetleJuice and I were her constant companions keeping her safe on the mean streets of a major city.

We walked, ate, hung out, slept, and drank together (Though Samantha had no beer, wine or booze of course). In the end after Pizza and a great “first customer” meal at Street Eats on Liberty, she ordered a delivered Permante Brothers sandwich and we saw her safely off back home. We have all three remained besties in contact via Messenger ever since. Baby Samantha, a girl, was born healthy and she and Mom are doing great in the outback near Albuquerque. We Video chat a few times a month and Beetle and I have a standing invite to Winter in New Mexico if we want to skip some of a Minnesota Winter in the future.

Ever since Beetle has been both my #1 dude and occasional bodyguard. He will often gift me with some of his street finds like the $50 lighting port ear buds I enjoy and mix music with, and while I’m here in Ohio I make sure he has food, cash, etc to get by daily, stay safe, and still be alive after I return to Minneapolis, God Willing, beyond this deadly pandemic.

When we Messenger video chat he constantly amuses me with various filters turning his bearded face into aliens, clowns, vampires and more.

Be assured, you will hear more about Beetle in other chapters herein, but for now off to my #2 dude- McGovern.

Michael Patrick Joseph McGovern, aka MP Mac- “Sitting on a Park Bench... eyeing college girls with bad intent...”

As far as I can ascertain, having not seen or heard from McGovern for months now, the last he called me he was in Cambridge, MN center of Minnesota Gastroenterology, both mine and Bev’s colon cancer screening practice. He was dying of colon cancer... RIP the “Bard of Dinkytown.”

I made the acquaintance of McGovern while repacking my backpack on the porch of 1206 5th St. SE one very cold rainy Spring morning in 2018. I heard a deseparate cry for help coming from the corner park next door and went to investigate. A very wet and nearly hypothermic MP Mac was laid out on the bench nearest 5th writhing in pain, hypothermic and dying. I called 911. They knew McGovern and took him away to get warm, sober up and recover in the mental health ward at Hennepin County Medical Center as they had apparently many times previous.

Days later when he, his backpack, Bible, and hardback concordance of the Bible were perched on the same bench we became not only friends but best friends for the next year or more. By then it was almost officially Summer- the equinox on the evening of the 20th of June, 2018. McGovern suggested we throw a Solstice party in this his sacred spot. The corner garden was and is dedicated to the love of his life, the gardener of that corner for decades- Jean. Her bronzed memorial statue looked down on us as he explained his upbringing in the neighborhood nearby, his devoutness as a member of St. Lawrence Catholic Church across 5th street, and his belief that the garden was owned in perpetuity by the church.

And so I went down the street near my “camp” across from the University of Minnesota’s Scholarship residence house and “borrowed” their metal fire pit caldron, McGovern sent me to Target with his EBT card to buy a fuck-ton of cook out food, we fired up the safe fire pit to cook a few hot dogs and s’mores and then? Sirens, flashing lights, and cops descended on us. It was not church property but owned by the apartments next door. The cops “ran our ID’s” , “trespassed” us verbally (it matters how they kick you out of anywhere), and doused our cookout. Fuck!!! So we ended up eating the non-fired food, got drunk, and left a short while after the 2nd Precinct MPD.

I could easily write a book on the next many months sharing the two park benches in Marcy Park near campus and tales of yore, not to mention his escapades as a 26-year “homeless by choice” drunk bum traversing America but always returning to his beloved Dinkytown. As time went on we began to call ourselves “The Grumpiest Old Men”, and imagined a YouTube channel of our hilarious cut-up and joke fests on the benches of Marcy Park and Joan’s Garden. To complete the trilogy of Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men starring Matthau , Lemon, and Ann Margaret. Wish we had videoed a few episodes, but alas- the best laid plans...

Stay tuned for so much more on McGovern. Moochie, Elijah the Non-Profit and Jack Frost...

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Chapter 6- The Major Domo’s whose names carry weight and have power during this C19 Anarchy in Dinkytown, Uptown, and Downtown Minneapolis...

And Now..... for the most fascinating part of Homeless in Minneapolis. Meet my street family "home bums" of Dinkytown and neighborhoods nearby... The best among them? BeetleJuice, McGovern, Jack Frost, Chevy, Elijah the Non-Profit and unfortunately murdered Moochie the King of the Homeless for many years. BeetleJuice (The Right Reverend BeetleJuice) at the University Lutheran Church of Life (ULCH.org), whose current job is on-site security at the church during Covid19, is the New KIng of the Dinkytown Homeless.

I have debated over the past 24+ months of knowing the various "home bum humans" (as we self-ascribe in the Dinkytown and greater Minneapolis year-round homeless community), whether or not to write this part of the book as a chronology of more than 500 days of day to day events, or as vignettes of the most fascinating homeless persons in my present orbit. And so.... because my goal is to fascinate, inform, entertain and create compassion among my readers???

Having now had as uncountable days of sharing both sufferings and joys with them, the lot (pieces of shit, vagabonds and heroes alike) are now my friends and ex- tended family for life.

To begin to profile any of these complicated "humans", especially starting with BeetleJuice, I need to provide you, my readers, with some context.

There are so many others- Michael Patrick Joseph McGovern aka M.P. Mac, Aqualung, Roe,

Native Steve, Angela, Isabella, Native Pat, Commadore, Josh, Zara, Shitty Pants, Elijah, Twist Chain, Black Mike, Sean, Chris, James Semper Fi, Amigo, Daniel Burg, Brian (B. of Nordeast), Mack, G-Boy, Buck Whitey, Walt god-dammit!, Blair, Abby, Bear, JoJo, Mr. T., Richard, Stoner, Hollywood, Memphis, and a few interations of Tony.

Plus various unnamed Pieces of Shit known only for their fucked up dirty deeds who know who they are and shall go unmentioned herein.

But BeetleJuice has become my very best Bestie on the Streets of Minneapolis and beyond where we have trekked together. So without further adieu..

BEETLEJUICE- “There are wars and rumors of wars...”

BeetleJuice almost fell in love with one of the local ladies, but alas, after almost three days stranded we caught The Empire Builder to Chitown.

That was11 months ago in the Summer of 2019. The era of “before COVID-19. Carefree days. Really.

When we Messenger video chat he constantly amuses me with various filters turning his bearded face into aliens, clowns, vampires and more.

Be assured, you will hear more about Beetle in other chapters herein, but for now off to my #2 dude- McGovern.

Michael Patrick Joseph McGovern, aka MP Mac- “Sitting on a Park Bench... eyeing college girls with bad intent...”

Days later when he, his backpack, Bible, and hardback concordance of the Bible were perched on the same bench, we became not only friends but best friends for the next year or more. By then it was almost officially Summer- the equinox on the evening of the 20th of June, 2018. McGovern suggested we throw a Solstice party in this his sacred spot. The corner garden was and is dedicated to the love of his life, the gardener of that corner for decades- Jean. Her bronzed memorial statue looked down on us as he explained his upbringing in the neighborhood nearby, his devoutness as a member of St. Lawrence Catholic Church across 5th street, and his belief that the garden was owned in perpetuity by the church.

Stay tuned for so much more on McGovern. Moochie, Chevy, and Jack Frost...

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Jack Frost... schizophrenic AF but knew as much or more about how to survive anything within a 2 mile radius of Dinkytown. The knowledge he imparted me with kept me quite literally healthy and alive from then until now. Like BeetleJuice, he was loyal to a fault and never has or never will fuck me over the way other homeless in Minneapolis here since the Spring of 2018.

Some Upcoming Chapters

Meet the Home Bums

Random Incidents: An Anthology of Daily Happenings on the Streets

The Survival Guide:

How to live home free, where to get help, sleep safe, eat free or cheap, stay clean, get medical assistance, get resource info,above all stay safe and stay home as much as you can. You might not get it but you might be a carrier and kill Grandma.

You Didn’t Actually SayThat? “Are You Fucking Crazy?”

Laugh your derrière off to some of the raucous hilarity, jokes, pranks, and crazy moments among the Home Bums of Dinkytown.

The Hennepin County Libary System & the Homeless

The amazing people, resources, kindness, and compassion our county libraries extend to the homeless

Thank God for our Communities of Faith

How amazing pastors and congregations through our fair city do more than almost any organizations to. Care for the Home Bums, displaced families, and anyone unsheltered with a special focus on Pastor Jen, Nick, Gayle, Zach, and Garamu at the University Lutheran Church of Hope (ULCH), plus other exceptional churches with dedicated services for the unsheltered and poor of MInneapolis including The Basilica of St. Mary through St. Vincent DePaul, St. Olafs, St. Stevens, and so many more. The works and programs of the incredible faith community benefitting the underserved will make you smile and lift your spirits to prove that there is much good in this world.

The Heroes and Villans

Businesses and Non-profits that kept me and continue to keep me and my brothers and sisters on the street alive & Well, and those who carry open prejudice, offer no help, and blatantly discriminate against some or all of the Dinkytown Home Bums.

The Homeless & The 5-0

How some of the best community policing in the country helps keep a balance between survival for the homeless and community safety needs. With special thanks to Cliff, The 2nd Precinct, MPD, and UMPD

On The Lammmm...

24 Interesting days under the Radar, The Villans,

Haters of the homeless, named and called out for their prejudice and inhumanity.

The Murder of Moochie McRunnel

The most tragic event of my two years on the street. She was blacked out drunk or high. He was hopelessly in love with her. But one early morning several police calls Di not result in her arrest until Moochie was found with 10 1/2 inches of a chef’s knife right through his heart.

Peter McQuaid- Eaten Alive (AKA Why in the fuck am I doing this?)

My motivations for both living among the homeless and penning this book

The Covid-19 Pandemic

Its affects on the existing homeless population and why the pandemic may as much as double the number of persons and family with no job. No money, and nowhere to go.

And more... stay tuned!

Trent, Nana, Cody. Bobby. Gracie and Margaret are taking care of our every need while I continue to apartment shop...

On May 8th , 2020 from SomeWhere in Minneapolis

- Zannman

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