JESUS LOVES YOU!

8:59:55 PM PDT

                                    River Organization: The Alpha

 

                                   Chapter I

                                   The Beginning of a Personal Crisis: Part II (Conclusion)

 

 

(Please read Part I first; found in the previous entry below.)

 

 

The plane touched down in New York some five and a half hours later. It was only 1 degree when the plane landed in New York. It was 57 degrees when I had left Las Vegas. Although I was wearing a trench coat with a wool liner over a three-piece business suit I was freezing. I hadn’t been in New York in the winter months in ten years. By the time I had arrived in New York in the middle of the night and received my rental car, I had received a number of phone calls from surviving family members who were waiting up and inviting me to stay with them. I had lost 14 members of my family over the decade since I had lived in Las Vegas. Family was precious to me. It was a difficult decision, since I wanted to be with family, and I knew they wanted to be with me, but I had decided to get a hotel room. I knew that I was the executor of the estate and I knew I would need the private time to pour over the mountain of paperwork I knew I would soon be faced with.

 

In the morning, I went directly to the funeral home and met with the director of the funeral home and some members of my family. In addition to making the funeral arrangements, selecting the casket and paying for the initial upfront costs required I informed the director that I insisted on a full military-honors funeral. The director informed me that I needed to present the deceased’s military discharge papers in order for the honor guards to perform a military funeral. That was understandable. But it was also a nightmare throwing a monkey wrench into my plans to coordinate the other things I needed to do in order to conduct my responsibilities the deceased had assigned me. I did not know where those DD 214 (discharge papers) were. I didn’t have a clue, and I had a number of estate beneficiaries I needed to locate and did not know where they resided. Tracking them down would be a time consuming event. I demanded that a full military honors funeral take place with no excuses and no exceptions. The funeral would not go forward until that was arranged, I insisted, the combat soldier deserved military honors. A funeral was not something which could be undone once done.

 

I was faced with these two tasks, finding the DD 214 and locating relatives in time for the funeral less than 12 hours off the plane.

 

Then I was off to the estate attorney’s office where I announced the situation at hand. This estate attorney, I had selected out of being placed in a time is of the essence situation several years earlier when my relative and friend was in ICU for a different life-threatening situation in which he was not expected to survive, but did.

The estate attorney had never been changed since that time and the Will had never been changed either. That is something of which I must place most of the blame upon myself. The attorney read the Will to me and informed me I was responsible, as estate executor, to pay all estate debt with my own funds. (Something I learned much later to be inaccurate after pouring through the New York State Law Library via my computer in Nevada and the fact that the Will clearly stated that I should not be, for any reason, held personally responsible to pay for any portion of the estate’s debt. In addition, if the estate beneficiaries could not make a peaceful decision on the distribution of assets in category as he chose for his love ones to select from, then I was empowered to make those fair and equitable decisions.) This attorney drafted the Will. It is his own language which he used and which was put into the Will. Now several years later I discover that language was defective. And the attorney was not qualified to handle estates. Furthermore, I should have had the hindsight of advising that the Will be changed to a Living Trust once the danger had pass of that time of urgency and I had failed to do so. Or at least, I should have raised the discussion and consideration thereof. But folks, talking to someone about their Will isn’t all that easy.

 

Needless to say, I had my hands full during this time period of unexpected events which although I knew would eventually arrive, I was still unprepared for. I called work in Las Vegas and ask that my paycheck and one-week vacation pay be sent directly to one of my New York banks. A week later, I needed yet another week’s vacation pay to be sent. I had extended my stay in New York from a planned three or four day stay to a week and then two weeks. Although I had twenty-thousand dollar credit lines on credit cards with zero balances, of which I then used for flights, rental car, hotel room, and changes of those due to an extended stay and such, I also had my personal bills needing to be paid in Nevada. So I needed money placed into my checking account so that I could handle those obligations while in New York without tapping into my savings or investments. I had now used up two of the three weeks vacation time I had coming in pay in order to manage my personal affairs while dealing with the estate affairs.

 

 

I hunted for the DD 214 or discharge papers which was most paramount on my mind in order for the military honors to be performed for one whom so deserved it. I was also busy, as the estate attorney was in trying to locate the missing relatives who needed to be found.

 

I hadn’t driven in snow for more than a decade, now I was navigating and working about in weather I personally wouldn’t care if I ever saw again.

 

Eventually, everybody was found that needed to be found. The military performed the funeral service without the documents needed based on numerous personal testimony, and internal investigations to the fact of evidence of service. After the fact, I provided the funeral home with documents needed once I had found them with the signature of General Westmoreland, Army commander of U.S. forces in Nam, to forward to the Honor Guard. So the first two priorities were achieved and along with the funeral being behind me, I could move forward into the affairs of the estate.

 

The stress was phenomenal, yet now I had to dig into the estate stuff and in the two weeks I managed to administer the things I needed to get done, and assign to-do lists for those in New York volunteering to help.  I had gathered what I needed in order to return to Las Vegas and handle the estate from there. But managing an estate nearly three-thousand miles away is not something I would recommend to anyone to endure.

 

From that point on I had a miserable time trying to conduct the things I needed to get done while back home in Las Vegas. I immediately purchased the headstone and arranged for the military plaque to be affixed to it. Of course, the memorial company couldn’t perform the installation until after the ground thawed in New York. In the meantime, once weather conditions were favorable, I had them recondition other headstones in the family grave site. Of which, the memorial company sent me photos of the before and after work which I found satisfactory. Friends and relatives in New York verified everything done on the part of the memorial company was satisfactory, so I was relieved this was done and over with less something happen to me.

 

But dealing with the idiots at banks and attorneys and creditors and utility companies and so forth in which I had to deal with drained me both physically and mentally. It was not only time consuming it was down right frustrating. Often I had to repeat the minutest details. Simple things like the mailing address procedures for them to send estate mail to me had to be repeated again and again.  With 10,000 people a month who are moving into Vegas and 5,000 people moving out each month the postal workers are bald, even the women, from pulling their hair out. In Vegas, people move in, move up, move down and move out, constantly. It is not Hometown America, where the postal workers know everybody on the street.

 

It seemed some people I had to communicate with didn’t even know how to use C/O (in Care Of) when addressing envelopes to me on estate matters. Even after I had told them it was imperative that they did so.  So, some vital mail was not reaching me, sometimes lost and sometimes sent back undelivered.  Sometimes we have to work if a computer program doesn’t allow enough space for proper addressing, so handwrite the address in then, is how I replied. Another thing, I demanded that all communications be in writing. I would not take or make telephone calls, except for limited cases, for doing so I could not keep the legal records I may later need as proof to support any claims I may have needed to make on behalf of the estate. Many of those I had to deal with were reluctant to place things in writing and that in and of itself raised red flags in my mind. Also, I was extremely busy running five departments once I had returned to work and didn’t have the time to be constantly interrupted. I had been gone for two week. I was buried trying to catch up. My work load was increasing and so was the workload of my boss.

 

My immediate boss in the used car department; the used-car manager and used-car buyer had recently been promoted to General Sales Manager, in addition to his previous positions. So this created additional work loads for both of us. We worked together like a machine, as he would often say. But that machine was now running dry of oil and lubrication and was heating up magnificently. It was about to overheat and breakdown because of the intense friction.  As it was, a number of beneficiaries of the estate constantly contacted me during work hours to ask me questions or provide me with information I needed on developments back in New York. This was just something which was necessary and couldn’t be helped. But nevertheless, it made it extremely difficult to manage the estate from nearly 3,000 miles away.

 

For the most part, I relied on email and saw no reason why anyone I had to deal with on the business end of the estate couldn’t use email to communicate as well. Except for exceptional cases, such as sending billing statements, or documents needing signing, emailing correspondence was an effective way to communicate and quite timely. It was also an effective way to keep records. However some I had to deal with didn’t want to cooperate on any of the methods of conducting estate business that I had suggested. This frustrated me to no end.

 

I was now having all of my free time away from my job, nights and on weekends, consumed with handling estate affairs. Sometimes it was necessary to interrupt my work to handle estate affairs during week day business hours in New York, and this only put me farther behind on the job.  

 

I could not and would not betray the trust that the one who chose me for his estate executor had in me. Therefore I could not turn the administration of the estate over to someone else.  The next best thing to do then was to leave my job and finish and settle the estate before returning to it. It was an unfortunate decision and quite frankly made while under phenomenal pressure and during such stressful activities. I later greatly regretted the decision. Not only did I regret it, I carried a huge amount of guilt on my shoulders since leaving the “A Company” would dump a phenomenal workload on to those I had left behind. These were people who trusted me and who was part of a very special team.

 

I was burned out even before going to New York. I could not recover with the additional burden of the estate. I could have handled my multiple positions on my job with no problem, but I could handle no more. If I had spread my three weeks vacation time throughout the year, taking a vacation at the end of every four-month period, and enjoying some serious R&R, I could have easily recovered each stage of exhaustion.

 

The workload of the estate sent me over the edge. But it wasn’t something anyone could do anything about. No one was directly to blame for the situation which felt like a Mega-Tsunami which hit me with the full force of waves of destruction that led to financial disaster. So, unfortunately, I gave up my job. My entire disposition had changed for the worst and I was becoming someone I did not want to be. I was no longer meek. My attitude was sour. In fact there was nothing meek about me….

 

I not only left behind a great career, I left behind a great team and great friends. The only thing that was on my mind was getting that estate settled and getting it settled exactly as the war hero had instructed me to settle it, no excuses and no exceptions. And that is exactly what I had intended on doing.

 

Thank You For Joining Me & God Bless You.

And Always Remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Tags: Homelessness, Financial Crisis, Personal Crisis, Estate Executor, God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Faith, Christianity

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6:22:45 PM PDT

                                              River Organization: The Alpha

 

                                              Chapter I

                                              The Beginning of a Personal Crisis: Part I

 

I am going to fast forward here in my journal in order to express a solution for a change. My readers will temporarily miss much of the nuts & bolts descriptions of the events which brought me to the conclusion of the need for the River Organization; however I’ll revert back to those experiences in future postings.

 

I’ll pause here (or rewind) only long enough to give my readers a picture or glimpse of what I was doing before and during the downward spiral of my own financial annihilation. It will take at least a couple of entries in order to complete this. It is something I had desired to have remained private, yet with time to contemplate I felt that if my readers did not know where I was coming from, then they could not know where I was going.

 

Most financial advisors recommend that for personal financial security, a person has from three to six months worth of salary in liquid assets in order to offset a personal crisis such as a loss of employment. I had over three times that amount. If the events which follows had not occurred I would have been able to sustain myself, unemployed, for up to three years without any outside income before my personal finances were totally evaporated.

 

I did not simply just jump off the hobo train and join the Bums “R” Us club of being homeless.

 

I was working for a large Nevada automobile dealership; I’ll call “A Company”, in which I was a manager supervising in five different departments at the same time. The positions I held in those departments were lease manager, assistant used-car manager, recon manager (Reconditioning), New-car operations manager, and porter supervisor. I also assisted security personnel when problems needed addressing when security supervisors were not available; although security was not part of my job description within the five departments I actively supervised simultaneously.

 

My job duties required me to provide my attention over a massive new & used car lot consisting of several acres in size. I would decide which trade-in vehicles would be wholesaled or reconditioned for retail.  I would work with numerous vendors and decide which reconditioning repairs would be made on each retail unit. I would write Repair Orders (RO) and approve or reject mechanical repairs recommended by technicians. There were many other duties I performed simultaneously; these are a just a brief few. However, from A-Z, I touched each and every vehicle, new & used which came onto the lot for resale and prepared its destination in the dealership. The entire dealership inventory, consisting of thousands of vehicles, was my responsibility and under my supervision.

 

The privately-owned family of dealerships was a multi-line auto group. To give an indication of the volume of business, the GMC-Pontiac-Buick store alone shattered sales records across the country. The Pontiac store was the number one selling Trans Am dealership in the world seven years in a row. At the time, three of the six Nevada (West Region) General Motors World-Class Technicians worked for the dealership. One was one of my four used-car technicians, the other two worked as service technicians in our service department. Another was based in Northern Nevada and the remaining two were instructors who taught the courses at local universities and colleges. World-Class Technician status is only achieved after completing 8 of 9 Master Technicians Certifications along with other requirements. It is the elite of the elite. Today only 10 such World-Class Technicians exist in the state of Nevada. The achievement of a single Master Technician Certification is of itself a Mark of Excellence in achievements. I illustrate this simply to show, as a team, we were second to none and together we worked like a machine. If there was a problem needing solving, our team could solve it, bar none.

 

In the three years preceding unemployment and eventually homelessness I had paid approximately $15,000 per year in taxes.

 

It was common for me to work an eighty, ninety or more hour work week. A 16-hour or more work day was typical for me. Yet I had a fringe benefit uncommon for managers in the car business. I had Saturdays and Sundays off. Occasionally I would work on my days off when I needed to catch up on my workload. Many times I had stayed all night on Friday nights, with the business closed, in order to clean off the work on my desk and finish it so that on Monday mornings I could get a fresh start with nothing buried or forgotten in some messy pile of papers. That meant I had often worked twenty-four hours straight, going into my weekend.

 

On weekends, after resting, I would continue my religious studies and I would often write documents into my computer files of my intentions of helping the poor once I retired and how I was going to help them.  I have volumes of those ideas stored. Those volumes have grown since then, of course. At that time I had planned on retiring in three to four years. When I say “retire” I mean to withdraw from the over forty-hour work week and do something less stressful and more meaningful for the needy. My plans were to serve God and do the things He tells us in the Bible to do. During this time I wasn’t thinking about the homeless per say, or at least exclusively. Although helping the homeless was part of my future agenda, my focus was on hunger. World hunger particularly, was on my mind. Hunger is an evil thing. Since I was a child, I could never understand why a single person should ever experience hunger, here in the United States or anywhere in the world. There is simply no excuse for hunger.

 

I had no clue that I myself would ever become homeless. I can only attribute the things I wrote down in my files, without having a real inside knowledge of the actual situation occurring in the lives and on the streets of the needy, to the Holy Spirit. The ideas came from Him through me. I listened and I responded. That is the only way I can explain it.

 

A death in my family in New York, in which I was the executor of the estate, interrupted my career as a manager in the automobile business.  

 

I flew to New York, after receiving the call while I was at work, that the veteran U.S. Army combat soldier who had served with the First Team, Black Horse Unit, was in grave condition in the ICU. Southwest Airlines had done an extraordinary job and worked diligently in order to secure me an emergency flight out of Las Vegas as quickly as possible. It was Christmas season, so that compounded the situation for finding an available seat. I was hopeful I could make it to New York in time to be at his bedside before the Lord took him. But the call came in just before I boarded the plane that he had passed. There were a number of questions the family members needed to know, until I arrived in New York, in handling the arrangements of the war veteran, and I directed them with the answers they needed before boarding the plane. Moments later, the plane lifted off from McCarran International Airport on a flight path toward New York. 

 

Thank You For Joining Me and God Bless You.

And Always Remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

Sunday, 11 May 2008

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10:43:54 AM PDT
       Happy Mother's Day, Ladies!

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9:24:33 PM PDT

According to a recent New York Times article there is a decrease of  the homeless population in the city. But the readers, the people who live there seem to dispute the figures. The comments to the article make more sense than the content of the article.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/city-sees-drop-in-homeless-population/?hp

 

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12:06:47 PM PDT
Hearing Down to the River to Pray: Alison Krauss

EVERYDAY IS A GOOD DAY TO PRAY.

Alison Krauss sings it so beautifully we can't help but follow.

Morning Praying:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x87RKXETBEk&feature=related

Afternoon Praying:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=F1FQqSGxBso&feature=related

Evening Praying:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=L3D-HmjzFy0

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol' way
And who shall wear the robe & crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O brothers let's go down
Let's go down, come on down
Come on brothers, let's go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol' way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O mothers let's go down
Let's go down, come on down
Come on mothers let's go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol' way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O fathers let's go down, let's go down, come on down,
Come on fathers, let's go down
Down in the river to pray

Thank you for joining me. God Bless You.

And always remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

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6:30:24 PM PDT

Today is the National Day of Prayer.

The President of the United States of America

http://www.goodnewsdaily.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8333

The Governor of the State of Nevada

http://media1.ssiwt.com/ndptf/state_pdfs/2008/2008%20NV%20Proclamation.pdf

Our cities, our states, our country and the world needs our prayers.

From the book, The Wisdom of Saint Augustine:

                                             Goodness Is A Gift

The mind of man is miserable and longs for happiness. It can only hope for this because change is possible, otherwise the mind could neither move from happiness to misery, nor from misery to happiness. Under the rule of an all-powerful and good God nothing but the mind's sin and his justice could have made it miserable. And nothing but the mind's goodness and the Lord's rewarding of it can make it happy. Yet even the goodness is a gift from the one whose reward is the happiness. --Saint Augustine On the Trinity, Chapter 15

                                                The Ear of God

At the heart of every human being is the ear of God. Human ears hear human voices. God's ear hears the voice of the heart. --Saint Augustine Homily on Psalm 119

"Either the evil we fear exists, or our fear itself is the evil." -- Saint Augustine The Problem of Evil in Book VII from his book, The Confessions

RICKY SKAGGS "Somebody's Praying"

http://www.ndptf.org/press_room/Index.cfm?Entity=4&Department=4&Dept_Order=1&This_TopicOrder=12&This_SubtopicOrder=1#5

Thank you for joining me. God Bless You.

And always remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

                                                                      

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12:32:29 PM PDT

Defining more accurately the indicative manner of what I had in mind when I referred to "salaries" as a primary reason of why homelessness has not been solved and continues to grow is this:

There are more specific affects directly impacting homelessness than those presented in the previous entry. Any logical thinking manager with a financial interest invested I believe would most likely agree.

One of the most wasteful and absurd situations occurring is the attempt to count the number of homeless people that there are. The practice of counting homeless people is draining the resources of funds which could better be used to eradicate homelessness.

This "counting" procedure is both fruitless and absurdity in the most simplistic terms.

The counting can not give an accurate census. It is totally impossible to come up with a truthful or exact answer when attempting to count the number of homeless people that there are. You can only come up with an estimate at best, and the estimate may be so far off that it presents my reasoning for labeling it as pure absurdity.

Please allow me to pause here and answer the question of why we do a census to count the number of homeless people there are to begin with.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), forces communities to conduct a homeless census. State and Local governments are forced to pass down the mandated HUD directive to social service agencies and organizations (Both private and government) in order to obtain federal funding.

HUD wants to know just how many homeless people that there are in any particular community before they will fund those subordinate agencies or groups. They demand a number. The larger the number of homeless people that there are results in larger federal funding, not just from HUD but other bureaucratic agencies at the top portion of the federal pyramid.

This is the primary ludicrousness I was referring to when I chose "salaries" as a fundamental single word to blame one of the major reasons we still have homelessness and why it is growing. Not the individual social worker who is in the trenches. (although a few ought to not only lose their jobs, but their pensions as well.)

Saving adding a lot of links to this entry and making this entry colorful by inserting mathematical figures, I'll forgo the research required to provide such, so just bare with me. It will be in black and white, rather than color.

I am not certain of the figure, but it was between $250,000 and $500,000 Las Vegas spent on research in order to conduct the HUD required census. Such "counting" was to be done twice a year, meaning a total of a half of a million dollars to one million dollars was to be spent counting uncountable homeless people.

This is an enormous, massive undertaking of the most asinine bureaucrat system failure imaginable. You can not accurately count the number of four-leaf clovers on any sizable lawn without evaporating your resources while trying to do so. How many birds were in the flock of migrating birds you last say?

The economical senselessness of all this is that an enormous project of this size requires made-positions in which salaries are made by those conducting the fruitless "research". Big research companies are used or created in order to conduct the census. Numerous nonprofit organizations spring up to partake in the cause of counting or "helping" the homeless as well, each requiring paid-positions and self-made positions of employment.

Las Vegas has a land mass of 113 square miles. That is an awful lot of area in which to hide, blend in and get lost.

There are many homeless people who do not want to be counted. And the counters will not find them. No matter how clever the counters think they are. Fugitives, and there are many of them among the homeless especially in Vegas, will hide. Teenagers are among the hardest to count. Teenagers will blend in with kids at the mall and go totally undetected by even the most keen "researcher". There are countless examples of homeless people who will go uncounted.

When the various groups and agencies get ready to do the count for the mandated census it is publicly announced. Many "volunteers" are recruited and used, many homeless people are used. I believe those are paid $10 per hour to help the researchers conduct the survey.

As a society, we are spending money in order to gain money from the federal government and other foundations which give to charity. It is a much more colorful picture to say we have "15,000" homeless people rather than to just say we have a "bunch" of homeless people. It makes for better reading when we attempt to gain funding. The truth to the matter is we are slicing the pie into so many pieces that when the funds do reach the homeless, they are not getting even the crumbs, but the little bit of crust still stuck to the pan as the pie is dished out.

Without mentioning the non-profit organizations name, one such meaningful group received a $50,000 donation for a single individual. That is a sizable amount of donation. Do you know what the organization spent on its own, independent counting project? $50,000!

With just $50,000, I alone could get many homeless people off the streets and into an independent, self-supporting situation, not temporarily, but permanently.

Homelessness is an ever changing thing. The people who were homeless yesterday may not be homeless today. And tomorrow there will be new comers to the streets. You can not count those who pass through a revolving door, and you can not count those who are blending in. And there is a significantly difference with those living on the streets and those in some form of shelter, yet both groups are homeless.

Would I be counted right now, as being homeless, but staying among friends? The census would miss me completely. Yet I am homeless. I am not yet self-supporting and I am still living out of a backpack. Tomorrow I could be in the streets. Multiply someone like myself for as many times as you desire to imagine.

And what about those at the malls, in the casinos, traveling on a bus, sleeping in cars in some parking lot, sleeping on the roof tops or hiding out in some vacant building or couch surfing, or camping out in the desert or dug into some foxhole, or... well a billion places? Folks, they use several helicopters to try to count the four-leaf clovers wandering around. The senselessness of all this is absurd.

Now, all this happens in Vegas. Multiply that all across America, every community where there are homeless, where every government agency and every nonprofit group is trying to get a piece of the American pie (and it's not apple) in the name of "research" in order to obtain the funds which support their salaries and cause.

Our spending money in order to make money by showing those who hold the purse straps is in fact causing us to go broke before we even have the opportunity to address the problem we set out to solve. In those terms, I reiterate, the system is broken.

In conclusion, this does not even address the layers and layers and layers of redundant non-profit organizations and government agencies which each take a piece of the pie with each taking salaries and administrative funds and yet not fixing the flat tire of one of our most pressing social problems. By the time society realizes this, that flat tire will be a full-blown blow out.

Is that a little clearer picture of the funneling of hard earned American taxpayers dollars and donated money?

In two words, I would call it senseless census.

 

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4:59:22 PM PDT

All readers are welcome to comment on my journal entries. I enjoy everyone's opinion rather or not I may agree. It is not my position to cause a fight or argument over any individual's career. An overwhelming majority of my family and friends are employed by govenment agencies. I love each of them dearly. However, when we start taking a deeper look at the salaries and benefit packages of government workers we can clearly see a remarkable difference between the private sector and government.

We are a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Yet those who "serve" us often enjoy far better employment salaries and benefits than the folks who are privately employed. Government workers often have unions to protect them when the private sector does not.

I acknowledge that there are great many government workers who are very hard workers and dedicated to their positions. But the average American works just as hard and is not nearly as protected by unions, health care or a number of other job-related benefits such as retirement.

The following is by no means conclusive. In the course of a few moments I am throwing together some links to facilitate a debate of rather or not I am on the right track when I say salaries (and benefits) have a great deal to do with why homelessness has not yet been eradicated. Of course, these are often a generalization of government workforce and not simply those dealing with homelessness per say.

Again, I realize and understand that many of you are government or nonprofit organization employees and I am not attempting to attack anyone personally.

       Benefits of Employement with the State of Nevada (From Day One) 

               http://dhhs.nv.gov/Brochures/SocialWk10-2007.pdf

41 paid days off per year beginning with first day on the job. Paid health insurance. Excellent retirement benefits. In order to fully weight the median income it must be considered that governmental employee salaries are factored into the results.

                   Clark County, Nevada Employee Benefits Package

       http://www.accessclarkcounty.com/depts/human_resources/Pages/benefits.aspx  

                         Social Services Manager (Clark County) 

http://agency.governmentjobs.com/clarkcounty/default.cfm?action=viewclassspec&ClassSpecID=66700&Agency=1282&ViewOnly=Yes

 Clark County Job Descriptions & Monthly Salary Range (All Positions)

http://agency.governmentjobs.com/clarkcounty/default.cfm?action=agencyspecs

This Issue is Hot! Over 167 Clark County Firefighters Earned Between $100,000 and $150,000 Plus Added Perks! An April 20, 2003 Review-Journal Article Reporting on the Number of Government Workers Paid Six-Figure Incomes. (Be sure to read the sidebar articles, related stories, to as well)

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Apr-20-Sun-2003/news/21122252.html

  Um... I didn't make this up and this was published six years ago.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/Dec-28-Sat-2002/news/20368602.html

Las Vegas Sun Editorial: Painful Public Pension Plans "The kind of pensions common to most workers 50 years ago remain common in government."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2007/apr/17/editorial-painful-public-pension-plans/

Las Vegas Sun: State Retirees Health Cost Loom Large; "Work long enough for the state and when you retire, the taxpayers will subsidize your health benefits, often completely, for the rest of your life." Loaded with articles, reports, debates on the subject.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/mar/16/state-retirees-health-costs-loom-large/

The National Conference of State Legislatures. Facts; "States provided coverage for about 3.4 million state government employees and retirees. State and local employees health plans cover about 10 percent of the total U.S. workforce and hold more than 20 percent of the nation's total pension assets."

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/stateemploy.htm

United Way of America, President, CEO Compensation $504,436

Charity CEO's Salaries Compared:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_charities_salaries.htm

Charity Navigator

http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm%3Fbay=search.results%26cgid=8%26cuid=23

2005-2007 Charity CEO Compensation Study

http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/content.view/catid/68/cpid/304.htm

Salvation Army Median Salaries:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=The_Salvation_Army/Salary/by_City

Catholic Charities of Los Angeles:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3435

And this is not even a well-organized research into the salary and benefit question. Nor does it look at federal-level agencies.

Thank you for joining me. God Bless You.

And always Remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

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12:45:29 PM PDT

KLAS-TV Channel 8 Las Vegas reports on the new wave of homeless people seeking shelter. Escalating domestic violence during financial crisis leads to a "huge increase in the number of women and children..." seeking shelter.

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8230696&nav=menu102_2 

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6:01:43 PM PDT

Fitting Together Pieces of the Journal: JESUS LOVES YOU!

 

As I go forth with my journal my readers will be forced, unfortunately, to put a jigsaw puzzle of sorts together. I am at the mercy of borrowed computers and the time I have on those computers in order to log my entries in the journal.

 

I am not at the mercy to have my entire notes which chronicles in any given, logical order the events which have taken place over the past couple of years. So therefore, I need to write from what is on my mind at the time and often to do so quickly.

 

Eventually, I should be able to gather my notes which I carefully recorded along the way as I experienced homelessness. And of those events which led to my own homelessness.

 

In the first instance, this journal was never intended to simply be about homelessness. However, I believe God changed that course, and required at least a larger portion of it to be so. At least for the time being.

 

As my introductory stated, the journal was originally designed to discuss social, economical and political issues with a Christian-based motivation or inspiration. Homelessness is a social issue of course, and it is a serious one, not just in this city of Las Vegas, Nevada or in cities all across America, but worldwide. Thus, the Lord has given me reason to write about homelessness. Utilizing my personal experiences, observations and my problem-solving skills, I believe the Lord has directed me to use this journal as a means of public exposure, or an outlet, or at least as a journal to log my ideas and experiences so I can put them down for safekeeping as well as sharing with those who are concerned with the social ills which we see growing around us.

 

Last year, during my first tour of homelessness, I communicated with the few friends I had found in Journal Land and told them I was going on a mission. I still feel and believe that is actually what it was and is--a mission. I believe God sent me into the streets, not once, but twice in order to gather the information needed in order to make a change in our society. I believe God sent me into the face of evil so that I could understand just what was wrong with our society’s perception of homelessness so that I could contribute and help repair it. With what I personally experienced, I can then relay those experiences to you. I will do my part, but homelessness is a social problem one alone can not possibly solve. It will take the entire nation coming together to address the severe problem of homelessness in the United States, and for that matter, the world.

 

What I have found, discovered and observed during my two tours of homelessness will sound shocking to many as I reveal them in the journal entries which follow. Again, the entries not being in any logical order, but as I can get them published. Not everyone will agree with what I present. Not everyone will agree with my solutions or my reasons for thinking the way I do and thus voicing what I say is needed in correcting a social problem which in my personal opinion has grown unnecessarily to epidemic portions.

 

I do not claim to have all of the answers. I do not claim to have a solution to all of the problems. And it is likely, at times that I may be off base to a minor degree only because I was in the Trenches of Evil and my thoughts were based on proactive reaction rather than logical reasoning based on advanced research. In other words, I often drew conclusions from what I saw and witnessed due to personal experience, (Being a homeless person going through the system) without having the means to investigate the reasons of certain events in further detail such as an investigative reporter or researcher might have done. I saw things as I saw them, without the ability at the time to ask those in charge of social programs, why such things existed or didn’t exist.

 

There are times I will write fast, unable to spend much time editing as I would if I had more time and computer use in order to present my work. I have a choice, to store and save my work for later public exposure allowing more time to edit and present it in a more organized fashion, or to release much of it now as it is fresh on my mind. The latter is what I have chosen, so therefore I apologize for the jigsaw puzzle effect it will have on you readers.

 

Before closing this entry, I want to once again thank Aimer, Bea and Indigo and others for their compassionate support during my first tour of homelessness. There were times when I wondered if the evils around me, surrounding me, weren’t going to win the battle. Even with the faith that I have, my faith was tested many times as Satin tugged on my arm trying to pull me away from the Father. That support was strength for me in times of weakness. Unfortunately, the emails I had received during that period were lost due to AOL’s email system, or my ignorance. Often I used public library computers called “Express Computers” where you are only allowed 15 minutes use of the computers. I’d read the emails intending to re-read them later only to discover they were deleted when I returned. I have used Yahoo email for years and they delete when I command them to delete and not automatically. So, that was something out of my control and to my great displeasure as I truly wanted to address those emails when I had more computer time.

 

I am a long-winded writer. That is my nature. I hope I can make it interesting enough to hold your attention and make it worthwhile for all of us. Perhaps the best way for you to read my journal, JESUS LOVES YOU!, for those interested enough, is as a reference. Rather than to try and cover all of the reading in one entry in one sitting, come back to it when you are free to do so.

 

I also desire greatly to visit all of your journals and read your writing for that is really the only way we can truly get to know one another.

 

I am currently homeless by all definitions of homelessness, but I am no longer on the streets. It is called “Couch Surfing” or staying with friends. I am out of harms way and I am among devote Christian friends. I see Joshua every morning as he comes by for prayer and bible study. (He “camps” outdoors at night). I’ll tell you more about this in the entries which follow.

 

So, I’m about to light the fuse which will blow the explosive charge on one of the most horrible social problems we have in America—Homelessness.

 

Some are going to hate what they read. They will hate what they read because I speak the truth and the truth may directly affect them. Some will hate me personally for revealing what I reveal. The reason is that their very jobs may depend on it.

 

The Greed & Skimming of American Creed.

 

The compliancy and the tacit complicity in the omission of the American people to follow their own conscience and their own hearts can be blamed as the primary cause of the enormous homeless problem we have in America today. In other words, we have believed in our leaders and trusted that our leaders were taking care of a dark social problem that we, the majority of Americans, feel needing to be eradicated. When our own conscience and our own hearts tell us something is wrong, gravely wrong, we do not yield to those inner warning signs and our society suffers from it. Our leaders betray us.

 

A total misconception of what causes homelessness and why homelessness still exists in America today offers us a delusion of monumental portions. After spending billions of dollars to eradicate homelessness over the past few decades, why do we still have homelessness?

 

Lighting that fuse I referred to a moment ago, if I were to choose one word which causes homelessness to remain in America today, that one word is salaries. The salaries and benefits of those working in the system of social services homeless programs are outrageously out of proportion to the funds reaching those targeted for relief in such social service programs. In consideration of the misappropriation of taxpayers’ dollars by government agencies and donations of American dollars to charity, greedy, self-servicing employment positions have skimmed the funds targeted to eradicate homelessness.

 

If every church, every non-profit organization chartered with homelessness as their agenda, every government agency, federal, state and local, chartered with social services programs did their jobs there would not be a single homeless person in America today.

 

The funds are there, folks. More than enough money is there in our system in order to eradicate homelessness. And there always has been. But that money, we the taxpayers have spent and that money we the donors have donated to charity and to our churches is being skimmed and being skimmed in great proportions by those employed in and charged with eradicating homelessness.

 

Homelessness is a big business for these groups who are in the business of homelessness. Their livelihood depends upon there being homeless people. Without homeless people they would not have a job or cause. It sounds shocking, but it is true. It sounds like a wacky, outrageous accusation, but it is not. It is the shocking truth.

 

Therefore, there is not a will or desire to eradicate homelessness among these governement agencies and non-profit groups. Doing so would mean committing career suicide. Thus, the homeless problem grows and as the problem grows more people are needed to fill lower positions and higher salaries are made to those on top because now they "manage" more people below them. Are you getting the point?

 

There is more to the story. And the rest of that story I hope to get out as quickly as I can. Along with other personal experiences I’ve seen on the streets and the process of going through the “system” during my two tours of homelessness, I hope to share with you so that we may somehow work together in order to find a solution.

 

As you read of the situations, please keep in mind, not all people working in the numerous nonprofit organizations and the government offices are evil. There are many good, truly caring people out their trying to help. And you must know that as I disclose some of the problems more closely, I am not saying that every agency, or every person involved is 100% wrong or evil. What I am saying however; is that as a system, the overwhelming majority are, unfortunately. The system is broken. The system is broken bad and it needs to be fixed, and soon.

 

It is my hopes that in time you will be able to put the pieces of this puzzle together and see how everything fits… or does not fit. In that way, we may begin to repair a very broken system. But before we can create a repair order for this broken system, we must first know what is broken and what needs to be repaired. In that sense, I hope that I am useful.

 

Thank you for joining me. God Bless You.

And always remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!

River

Las Vegas, Nevada

Tuesday, 29 April 2008 3:00PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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