Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, Stepping Stones, Shalom Community Center and Martha's House will ask Bloomington to participate in National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week Nov. 16-22 to bring awareness to poverty in the community.

It is a collaborative effort between the four non-profit organizations to teach community members about poverty and empower them to take action against poverty in Bloomington. The week's events include Food for Thought, Bloomington, Stand Up! and the Bloomington Food Stamp Challenge.

Food for Thought is a returning program under which several local restaurants donate a portion of proceeds to the participating non-profit organizations.

"Stepping Stones partnered with Martha's House last year to create what was called the Food for Thought fundraiser," Stepping Stones Assistant Director Warren Wade said in an e-mail. "We collaborated and recruited a handful of restaurants to donate a portion of their proceeds to our two agencies."

When Monroe County Jail inmate Trevor Richardson formally complained about conditions in the county "correctional center" the day after Christmas last year, he made the place sound like a third-world prison.

"I have been in jail the past 129 days and have been consistently subject to inhumane, unsanitary and harsh conditions," he wrote in a Dec. 26, 2007, grievance filed with county corrections officials. "I don't understand why on a 24 man block we probably average a constant 70 inmates with just two showers and bathrooms available to us."

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In a federal lawsuit filed a month-and-a-half later against the Monroe County sheriff and the county commissioners, Richardson added "dangerous" to his list of descriptors. He asked U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young to determine whether "conditions in the Monroe County Jail violate the United States Constitution and Indiana law."

It is move-out time. Pictures are taken off the walls, the carpet is vacuumed one last time, and all the counters are wiped clean. The landlord arrives for the move-out inspection. Move-in damages are compared to the state of the property now.

What appears to be the normal tear and wear of renting for a year can turn into deductions from a security deposit. And Jim McGillivray, IU Student Legal Services (SLS) staff attorney, says the definition of the normal wear and tear is broad.

"What we try to argue in court is that ordinary wear and tear is the sort of depreciation you would expect from that (type) of tenant and the number of tenants living in the premise for a year," he explains. "But what could look like normal wear and tear to one landlord can look like damages to another."

Hal Taylor couldn’t be any more direct when asked if Monroe County should build a new jail. “No,” the 89-year-old prison-reform advocate answered during an interview in his jailhouse office.

In his duties with New Leaf, New Life, a nonprofit organization that injects a dose of therapeutic justice into the county’s reluctant criminal justice system, Taylor and colleagues like Tania Karnofsky speak face-to-face with 40 to 50 nonviolent inmates each week.

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The jail, designed for 126 prisoners but which housed 334 on Sept. 21, is full of people who do not belong there, they say. Building a new jail would simply perpetuate a broken system.

“If we have a new jail,” Taylor said, “all the problems that are causing this jail to be overflowing would cause the next jail to be overflowing in another month after they got the new jail in. We’ve got to have real reform.”

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Related story: Stoops, Thomas offer alternatives to new jail

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News Release
Stoops for Commissioner
Thomas for County Council

Democratic candidates Mark Stoops (Commissioner, District 2) and Julie Thomas (Monroe County Council At-Large) held a joint press conference on Saturday October 4. With the Monroe County Jail in the background, the two candidates outlined their opposition to the construction of a new jail in Monroe County.

The first stop on a Jim Kennedy-led tour of the county jail is a tiny segregation cell holding a wild-eyed, drawn-faced man who looks to be in his 50s. As the inmate spoke through the inches-thick slit of a window, Sheriff Kennedy told him he couldn’t hear and to speak through the door jam.

A couple seconds after the sheriff moved his ear to the door’s edge, the man started shouting. Most of it was unintelligible from my vantage point about 5 feet from the secured steel door, but I did clearly discern: “I’m a veteran. … Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

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Just a few minutes earlier in his office, Kennedy had explained that the Monroe County Correctional Facility, which occupies the top two floors of the Justice Building at Seventh Street and College Avenue, was designed and built to house 126 inmates.

With food and gas prices rising in a slowing economy, it seems there is no escape for low-income families in Bloomington. As they try to survive paycheck to paycheck, choices must be made. Is there enough money to pay the electric bill? Is there enough put aside for an emergency? Is there enough for groceries and the bills?

While many face these types of questions with uncertainty, there are small solutions that can help save money and lead to another positive outcome -- better nutrition.

Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard’s (MHC) Community Gardens Program teaches patrons and Bloomington residents an economical way to grow food in their own backyards. By combining nutritional and gardening education, participants learn a basic life skill that people of all ages are lacking in modern times.

“I strongly feel that having more community food security and having more home gardens is one of the keys of cutting down on the amount of poverty in a community and to just creating a beautiful and sustainable community,” says Stephanie Solomon, MHC’s assistant director.

It’s hard to think of a tragedy worse than that which befell Elena Veach last week. A talented teacher and wife of Bloomington’s New Tech High School principle Alan Veach, Elena, just 27, fell after giving birth to her son. A victim of genetics gone bad, Elena passed from a congenital heart defect; too soon, and too tragic.

But not without a legacy. For now Elena’s family is struggling to raise funds for which to pay her posthumous medical bills. Bills accrued during her life, due now that it’s over and because it’s over.

A bake sale of sorts, for the past health needs of a vibrant individual. Covering the obligations that she, in death, was forced to lay on the feet of her survivors. Here, in the most prosperous nation on earth.

When Linda Ball noticed the police car following her on the evening of July 21, the mental image of standing naked in front of a stranger while being debugged was not one she could have envisioned. But then, the 54-year-old grandmother had no reason -- none whatsoever -- to imagine any of the events that would transpire over the next 15 hours.

It was about 10:30 on a Monday night when she saw the Bloomington Police Department squad car in her rearview mirror. She hadn't had a single drink, even though she had been listening to music at a local club. And she's certainly no criminal.

But some of her family members have had interactions with the law, and Ball is no fan of how the local criminal justice system operates. So her attitude as she crossed College Avenue heading west on 11th Street: "Hopefully, they'll just turn."

The following letter was written by Rebecca Riall, a former board member of the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center, which dissolved after the resignation of all members. Riall resigned to protest IU’s lack of attention to the interests of American Natives.

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I am writing to tell you why the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center (FNECC) Board is dissolving and to share with you my challenge to IU to include American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in diversity policies.

In the remainder of this letter, I speak only for myself, not my former fellow board members.

The FNECC board fought for the establishment of an American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian student center and has, on a volunteer basis, organized the FNECC's programming, represented IU to American Indian communities and provided student support services since 2006.