Happenings

Homeless Court is once again around the corner. This round has been much more involved. I now meet with my clients on a regular basis and request a lot more documentation. Because of the increased responsibility on the part of the client, fewer people made it through the process. I took three people to see the public defender today. Nevertheless, as usual, there were surprises. One client actually had no active cases, which is a good thing. But now I will be working with her to see if she can get some of her cases expunged so it is easier to get a job. She has made some remarkable progress. Another gentlemen was not on file, but because he has a rather simple case I think we can get him into court on the 17th. A few extra calls here and there should do the job, and maybe a letter or two. Other than that today went as expected.

We are working on putting together and event for early August that will celebrate the contribution that the African-American has made to the Bay Area. The idea is to have food, music, speakers, art and a whole lot of fun. It takes a lot more work to plan events like these than I thought. Talking to people, getting them to committ, finding resources and donations on little or no budget. It's all great fun. Or not really.

The enrichment meetings are going well. Last week we spent over two hours discussing The Allegory of the Cave - Part II. The guys could not get enough of it. Some of them actually requested to use it again. We decided, however, to move on and this week our discussion group will get a dose of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Self-Reliance, with a little Thoreau and Whitman thrown in to support the transcendental theme. I think that it will be a good topic and even though it is fun to discuss on its own, there is good practical knowledge all over the place.

I have been doing some one-on-one work with one of the guys, teaching him how to use a computer. I cannot believe how much we take for granted having grown up during the computer era. I have to start by explaining how to turn the computer on. From there I have to explain how to log onto the computer, but before I can do that I have to explain how to use the mouse, what button to click, how many times to click it, where to click, how to make sure the cursor (the little flashy vertical line thing) is in the text box, what to write in the text box, etc. And that is just logging in! Imagine explaining icons, the start menu, word and of course the internet. I have so much respect for people who teach this kind of stuff every day. The way I think about it is that it is just like learning a language. We learned how to speak our specific languages when we were babies, we don't even remember it. That was how it was for me learning the language of computers. I don't remember learning all the details. The guy I am working with is a completely clean slate, has no knowledge whatsoever and is used to doing things his way. But we are making progress. It is an interesting experience.