Joel Kilgour Posts

Community Connect seeking volunteer stylists

Community Connect is seeking volunteer hair stylists and massage therapists. We are especially in need of stylists experienced with African heritage hair. If you are able to help, please email [email protected] or call Loaves and Fishes at 218-724-2054.

Community Connect is a twice yearly event that connects people experiencing poverty and homelessness with housing, hygiene, IDs, employment, drug/alcohol treatment, voter registration, outdoor survival gear, child care and other vital services. Between 300 and 400 people are expected to attend the fall Community Connect on Oct. 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Gimaajii Building, 202 W. Second St.

Temps are deadly, call homeless hotline with tips

Homeless in Duluth. Photo: Deb Holman

Photo: Deb Holman

Please, if anyone reading this is experiencing homelessness or knows of someone who may be living outside, in a vehicle or in an unheated building, call the Street Outreach hotline at 218-461-8505. An outreach worker will follow up on all tips and try to get people into shelter.

The Street Outreach Team is also in need of winter boots (all adult sizes), gas cards and warm hats and mittens. Donations can be brought to CHUM (102 W 2nd St) or Loaves and Fishes (1712 Jefferson St).

Recognize any of these?

BC

The Bike Cave is a little crowded these days with half-finished projects, if you left a bike here please claim it before the end of the month. Open shops are coming to an end for the season: the last two are Saturday, Oct. 25, 1 to 5 p.m., and Wednesday, Oct. 29, 3 to 6 p.m. After that the Bike Cave will only be open by appointment. We are not accepting donations at this time.

It’s been a great year, with more than 150 people of all ages building and going home with their own bikes. Join us for our third annual Halloween ride to celebrate.

Project Homeless Connect seeking volunteer barbers/stylists

Four-hundred people are expected to participate in Project Homeless Connect on Oct. 15, and we are really short on volunteer barbers/stylists. PHC provides a range of free services, but the haircuts are one of the most popular. A clean cut means a world of difference to a person’s dignity and job prospects.

If you can help, please contact me at duluthcatholicworker @ gmail.com or 218-340-4356.

PHC Poster

An open letter to Mayor Ness and the Duluth City Council

Home sweet home? photo: Deb Holman

April 27, 2014
TO: Duluth Mayor Don Ness
Duluth City Council
FROM: Concerned people of Duluth

At its first meeting of the year, the Duluth City Council, with the support of Mayor Ness, unanimously passed a resolution supporting a Homeless Bill of Rights and committing the City to take bold action to end homelessness.

Three months later, the city has not appointed a single person to the Human Rights Commission, the body tasked with implementing the resolution. In recent days, Mayor Ness has been quoted by the Duluth News-Tribune calling housing projects for the chronically homeless a “distraction,” and urging Duluth to “stay focused on market-rate housing.”

Bad Landlords in Duluth

Brent Tweet was evicted by JAS Duluth for complaining about a bad leak in his ceiling that JAS failed to repair for three months (see News-Tribune story). Now he’s homeless. And today he got a letter from JAS declining to return his damage deposit (money he needs to find another place) and charging him an additional $1,251.92 … for getting kicked out.

Duluth had an active tenants union some decades back that became the Housing Access Center. HAC closed in 2009 because of federal funding cuts. Have you dealt with a bad landlord recently? Did you know who to call for help? Would Duluth benefit from a new tenants union?

Where to donate for homeless

Cold weather has many people wondering what they can do to help the growing number of Duluthians experiencing homelessness. Obviously we need systems change and more housing. In the meantime, the Duluth Street Outreach Team is making sure people are accounted for, connected to housing resources and as warm as possible. If you are homeless or have tips on people who may be homeless, please call our 24-hour hotline at 218-461-8505.

Cold Weather = Danger for Homeless

In recent weeks, several Duluthians experiencing homelessness have suffered severe frostbite that may require amputation. With more people homeless than any time in recent memory, and another brutal cold snap on the way, please help the Duluth Street Outreach Team keep folks safe.

Vacant houses in your neighborhood?

With the ongoing foreclosure crisis and rotten economy, there are lots of properties in Duluth sitting vacant, often leading to vandalism and neighborhood blight. In the meantime, more Duluthians than ever are suffering homelessness.

Loaves & Fishes and Project Save Our Homes are looking for help to identify vacant houses in the Duluth area, particularly bank-owned foreclosures. We will be using this information to push for policy changes to protect neighborhoods and address the problem of homes without people and people without homes. Any information would be helpful: addresses of course, but also if you know how long the house has been vacant (condemnation/eviction/foreclosure notice are usually posted on the door), if utilities are connected… and if you might help organize your neighbors to address the problem! Contact us by Facebook or email: [email protected].

Duluth activist & cohorts shut down high-security nuke plant

Today on the Reuters newswire:

The U.S. government’s only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.

Be a Bridge … M3

Saturday is OUR day, Duluth! People all over the city are hosting neighborhood potlucks, having family conversations, contributing to worthy causes, and plugging in to a bunch of great public events already in the works (Party at the Bridge, Peace Jam @ Amazing Grace, Feast of Nations@ UMD…). Let us know what you do to strengthen our diverse community.

Save Ann’s Home! MLK Day march for housing rights

Background: Ann Lockwood is the owner of a modest East Hillside home. She walks with a prosthetic leg after a major medical crisis that also cost her a good-paying job. Ann is now at risk of losing her home to foreclosure by State Farm Bank, even though she is working again and able make consistent mortgage payments.

Please join us on Monday, MLK Day, at 10am to send this message from our community to State Farm: 1. cancel the sheriff’s sale of Ann’s home, and 2. provide Ann with a fixed-rate loan modification she can afford. Gather at 8th St and 7th Ave E, then march to the Washington Center to join the main MLK Day celebration.

This kind of people power is saving homes across the country, and we aim to do the same for our neighbors in Duluth.

What: Save Ann’s Home — March for housing rights

When: Monday, January 16, 10 to 11 a.m.

Where: Meet at the corner of 8th St & 7th Av E, march to the Washington Center

Who: Project Save Our Homes, Loaves & Fishes Community, Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, and hillside neighbors

More on Facebook, and check here for a complete listing of MLK weekend events.

Coleen Rowley 4/12

TIME Magazine’s 2002 Person of the Year and FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley will be in Duluth tomorrow for 2 events:

At noon on the steps of the Duluth Federal Building, she’ll headline a Stand with Brad! rally to support accused Wikileaks whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning. The 23-year old Army intelligence specialist is facing brutal pre-trial punishment at Quantico for allegedly leaking information about war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At 7:30pm in the Mitchell Auditorium at St Scholastica, Rowley will deliver the final lecture of the school’s Terrorism and Human Rights series, on the topic of Obama’s Response to Terrorism. Free and open to the public.

For more details, visit northlandantiwar.com.

Training for Change 11/12-14

From the Burmese jungle to coal mining towns in West Virginia, Training for Change (TFC) has for decades worked alongside grassroots activists to help them build more effective movements. This November 12-14, TFC is bringing its popular Training for Social Action Trainers (TSAT) to Duluth.

The TSAT is meant for activists, educators and organizers of all stripes who want to take their movement-building skills to a new level. Using experiential tools and small group discussion, the TSAT covers everything from workshop design to confronting racism. I highly recommend this training… but space is limited and filling quickly.

The fee is on a sliding scale ($150-$300) and includes all meals. Please don’t let cost be an obstacle: scholarships are available. Check out the Training for Change website for more details and to register.

Live Cuban music Tuesday at Carmody

Minnesota native Andrew Turpening has lived in Cuba and studied Afro-Cuban music at the National School of Arts in Havana. He’s pulled together some equally talented friends for a little benefit for the Pastors for Peace aid caravan/blockade challenge to Cuba. Expect Cuban standards (think Buena Vista Social Club), a little classic Argentinian music, and dance…