We had a pretty good meeting today.  Missy missed it, but she DID mail out some begging letters for us (she wrote the draft, I made corrections, she mailed them including paying for all the printing, paper, envelopes, and postage).  Two new members, one of whom is going to help me haul off some of the junk computer parts to a recycling place soon.  Willie is back (out of jail on spurious charges, which were dropped after he had spent nearly 90 days in jail) and attended.  We got notification of the PO Box rental being due, and I volunteered Pathways Sanctuary to pay for it (it’s a shared box, and Pathways paid when AHN was down before, AHN paid when we had money).  We got an annual report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.  I mentioned some of the efforts I’ve made to fix the laptop we gave John to use.  I also showed off some of the goodies I’m selling to raise money for people in need all over the country (see http://mossmalas.ecrater.com ).  Afterward, I showed Willie where the City’s Development Office was (so he could place fliers there), and Mike and I went to Bruisin’ Ales.  We learned that the jar broke last Thursday, but they kept the money they had collected… I’ll be placing a new jar there, maybe Friday.  I neglected to mention that ShutterBob revised our fliers and printed 100 of them (which we still distributed, despite the lack of mention of provenance).

Hope to see you there next week!

In service,

Moss

I got the following email from Marc Schechtman today:

Dear Moss:
La Jolla was too expensive for my income. So, I moved back to our already paid apartment in Warsaw. I actually have more business on this side of the Atlantic.

Sunny Valley Organics did not accept my investor for their farms. The investor was too interested in developing their own farms, which Sunny Valley saw as a competitive risk. This mean no jobs for our people. For now. I never give up.

I’m working with a Foundation in Warsaw that provides free meals to kids in need. We are trying to broker produce, supported by Custom Pak. The produce will come from Europe and maybe India.

I think of you and your group frequently. If there was anything I could do to improve the lives of the AHN members, I would be glad to do so. I hope to cross paths again in the near future.

Your Friend,
Marc

I just got the membership database caught up… we have exceeded 250 members (252).  Understand that we have not purged any members - this includes everyone who ever joined.  There is not a good way to determine who is and is not still in town or interested.

We have been busy.  Meetings continue, the photography project is stretching out (ShutterBob has cameras to loan people to take more pictures, he will pay for development).  Mike and I went to a transit planning meeting last night, and are due today at a meeting to convince landlords to accept more homeless people.  (Housing programs are meeting resistance getting landlords to accept their funding/clients.)   This meeting will happen before OUR meeting.

I have received several calls that can’t be answered — the phone number is not clear enough to call, or in a couple cases I tried dialing the number and deleted the message too soon.  One of those had some clothing… hope she found a place to donate it. That hurts.

Our bank account is trying to recover from a near death experience.  We have received no major donations, but have gotten some refunds and sold a few pieces of computer equipment (keyboard, scanner).  Please continue to talk to your friends and others to visit our website, we need our hit count up.

Guess that’s it for now.

In service,

Moss

We had a good meeting today.  Paquita was at work, Mike had an appointment, so they were not in attendance.  We had two members (one new) who had not been around for a while, and 2 regulars plus a new member from last week, so 6 total.

ShutterBob’s camera project is still going on.  Get a camera from him and, with permission, take some pictures of homelessness in Asheville.  It will raise awareness, which in turn will help heal the problem, and ShutterBob pays for the camera, the film, and development of the film.

We talked some about our Sponsor status with MindFreedom International, and distributed copies of the latest MFJournal.

We have distributed the last of our sock supply.  That happened today.  I still have yarn for hats, and am working at my usual pace (from just under 2 to almost 3 hats per week).  I’ll probably run out of yarn in a couple months at my current rate.  Hope we can raise some funds by then.

We still have some computers to work on.  I will only work on them when someone is here to help.  Some require a lot of work, some only a little, and one or two just need a little luck.

If you know someone who would be willing to donate to us, give me their address and we’ll send them a letter and a brochure.  The new brochure is fantastic, showing what we can do with only a little money.

I guess that’s it for this week.

In service,

Moss

I went out with Scott Meyer (of Educational Funding Alliance, Inc.)  today and distributed coats (which Scott had bought in and brought from a thrift shop in Charlotte) and more socks.  The coats were distributed at Church of the Advocate; the socks were split between there and Pritchard Park.  I still have about half a case of socks to go, we’ll probably get those out this week.

We had another great meeting Thursday, with 8 people in attendance including a new member.  ShutterBob is expanding/evolving his Faces of the Homeless photography project, including offering several cameras to the homeless, each with a roll of film, which are to be returned to him for developing when the roll has been shot.  John Gernandt (from PATH) was there, always good to see him. ShutterBob also paid for the next round of AHN fliers — these are the most important flier we have ever produced about AHN, as they outline all the things we HAVE done, not just the things we WANT to do.

We are flat broke.  The bank made a strange error Tuesday saying that we were $24 overdrawn, but on Thursday we were $20 in the black with NO RECORD at the bank of ever having been overdrawn.  (I have the slip to prove it, and my teller remembers it, plus it was witnessed by Mike P.)  But we need money.  We have gained a lot of good will from the community, but need to turn that into awareness and fundraising.

Here’s what you can do:  Get 10 people to view the AHN website.  It doesn’t matter if they’re homeless, just get them to view it.  Get them to see what we’re doing, what we have done, and what we could do with a very small amount of money.  Get them to talk to other people.  Even if nobody of these people donates to us, it will help.  Here’s how:

We are becoming involved with a fundraising source which recruits local businesses and local nonprofits.  (Similar to an Affiliate Program, but on a local level.)  The more businesses want to be linked to Asheville Homeless Network’s website… the more people come to the AHN website… and the more of those people who click on the linked websites and purchase something — the more that business will donate to AHN.  We haven’t implemented the program yet, but should be doing so in the next few weeks — so get people to the website, so we can build our impact.

If you know anyone who might donate to AHN, please make an effort to ask them to do so.  We do not take grants or federal funds, because of a number of reasons, and exist only on personal donations and a couple of church group donations.  If you need a copy of the new flier, ask me or any AHN member about it and we’ll try our best to get it to you one way or another — and pass that on to someone who might be able to donate.

OK, that’s enough of sounding like money is all I am about.  Attendance at the meetings has been great, there are lots of things we can do together.  Come get involved.

In service,

Moss

What I forgot in the last post was: over $5,000 in hundreds of bus tickets, dozens of monthly passes, and 5 or 6 annual passes.  I’ll get that added in.

This annual event hosted by BlogAsheville raised nearly $1,000 for A-HOPE.  I’m for it; I’ve said before EVERYBODY who is helping the homeless needs money.  Conversely, we raised $11.25 in donations at this event.I had a good chat with Amy Sawyer at the event, and she encouraged me to push fundraising by changing our flier.  Here is what I would like to replace the two columns (where we talk about what projects we MIGHT do)  in the flier with:

Why You Should Donate

To AHN

Over the past two years, AHN has received $17,000 in donations; with this money we have:

• held weekly meetings EVERY week (when Thursday was not a national holiday) – many thanks to Rosanne at Grove Corner Market for lending us her space
• given away over 1,000 pairs of socks
• given away over 50 blankets
• created and given away over 150 knit caps
• paid housing or utility deposits for 8 individuals
• paid to repair 4 vehicles
• paid to get 3 out of city impound lots
• paid for gas for at least 10 individuals
• helped several individuals keep their phone service
• maintained our informational website
• printed and distributed hundreds of copies of our two brochures, which have been borrowed from by other organizations
• provided 8 individuals with working computers (and have 6 more which could be repaired)
• taught 3 individuals how to work on computers
• worked closely with the City’s Homeless Initiatiave
• attended regular meetings of the Asheville-Buncombe Coalition for the Homeless

     AHN has NOT

• paid a single penny for office or building expenses
• paid a single penny in salaries
• treated homeless people with lack of respect
• forced a single person to jump through any hoops or asked them to do something they were not comfortable doing

 What would other organizations  accomplish with $17,000?

All AHN officers and staff are homeless, technically homeless, or formerly homeless persons, and have been for all of the 5+ years of our existence.

We don’t just help the homeless,

We ARE the homeless

We are doing this for each other out of the goodness of our hearts.  We have no single religious calling, and we judge people for who they are, not what we expect them to be or become.

Please donate today; every cent of your donation is tax-deductible and will provide more direct help for a homeless person than any other use of your money could.  Donation information is found on the back of this brochure.

Let me know what you think.

In service,

Moss

Thursday’s meeting was very well-attended.  Our average attendance has gone from 5 to 9 over the past 6 months.

We have started distributing socks and travel blankets at the meetings, with excess taken to A-HOPE by Mike.  I will be going downtown later today to distribute more.  We finished putting together a new computer package for Paquita, and gave her old laptop to John; we’re still waiting for Mike’s to come in, but he has a Mac tower for now.  I haven’t had any time to work on fixing the next computer on the queue, but should have everything I need for it… if it all works. I also need to start testing the monitors we have, to see what works and what I should just send to Charlotte Street Computer Recycling.

Mike and I will be attending the 3rd Annual Extravablogiversapaloozathon, a party thrown by BlogAsheville, later today (anyone is welcome, free beer and food and cheap transportation home if you need it).

In service,

Moss

I am in the process of getting a new cell phone.  Yes, this will be expensive.  I should be able to keep the same number, but I’ll let you know on that.  My nearly constant contacts with Sprint lead me to believe that their incompetence could lead me to a nervous breakdown, and AHN cannot afford that (and neither can I).  It is no small wonder that Sprint/Nextel has lost over 2 mi llion subscribers over the past two years.  The new plan will cost about the same, and will be with AT&T… I’m not that comfortable with them either, having been a previous subscriber, but most of the people I’m in contact with have AT&T phones so it will reduce the cost AND improve my ability to send messages to them.  Thanks for being patient while this process completes (or reverses itself, if it can’t be done).

Updated to add:  I got approved, should have the new phone by Monday.

In service,

Moss