Homelessness In Anchorage - Thoughts On What I've Been Told In OLE Class

I've been to five 75-minute classes on Homeless in Anchorage offered through OLÉ.  The class is facilitated by Nancy Burke, the Mayor's homelessness point person.  Friday's class was presented by Thea Agnew Bemben, M. A.,  who works for a consulting company on mental health.  She gave us the results of studies on ways to improve how the civilian and forensic (criminal) mental health population are served.


So after this much, here's my sense of things:

1. Berkowitz's administration is better organized and on top of things than I thought
1. At least in the data gathering aspects of homelessness
1. They're part of a couple of national models for handling data and using the data to reduce homelessness
2. Gathering data is important because it gives a picture of 
1. how many homeless there are
2. what categories the fit in
3. what services they use
4. how long they've been homeless
5. best ways to use resources
2. The Muni's data gathering system is up and running, though the sense I have is that it's a fairly recent phenomenon and it still has more to do
3. Homelessness models identify three categories of homeless on a 1-10 scale
1. 1-3 folks basically need help finding social services resources and can get themselves back into housing - these are people who have been housed and through an unexpected event (lost job, health emergency, etc) lost the ability to pay rent or mortgage
2. 4-6 moderate problems,
3. 7-10  problem homeless - mentally ill and or substance abusers that cost the city the most in police and health  and the most expensive to take care of
4. The third category is about 50% of the homeless in Anchorage
4. So, the most important way to deal with the 50% who have serious problems is to have better ways to deal with mental health in the community.  To increase the number of providers and beds available for the people with the most serious mental health problems
1. Right now both on the civil side (hospital emergency rooms, API) and the forensic side (jai/prisons), we're failing woefully.  
1. People get minimal treatment and sent back out onto the streets on the civil side.
2. On the forensic side, people wait in jail until they  can be evaluated to see if they are fit to stand trial, if they aren't, they sit in jail.  They are off the streets, get fed, get some medical treatment, but not what they should get.  And they could be in jail for months before even going to trial.  
2. A serious obstacle to enough beds is Medicaid rules that restrict payments to facilities with about 16 beds or less.  
5. Despite all the Mayor's attention to homelessness, without improving mental health access early on, the part of the homeless problem people are most upset about isn't going to go away.  And getting money for improved mental health care for the indigent is going to be hard.
6. The $40 million fund to help the homeless in Alaska will help
1. The MOA is using several different national models - including Housing First - which seems to have an immediate effect on reducing lots of the other problems homeless people have.  And getting housing that's accompanied with social workers is an important factor. 
2. There's concern that the State will cut funding because of this new source of financial help for the homeless.  

OK, that's my take on this off the top of my head after five classes.  There are two more 3 more classes, but I'll miss the last one.  

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The chart below comes from the Executive Summary of the Alaska Behavioral Health Systems Assessment commissioned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust with other health co-sponsors.  Thea Agnew Bembem - the presenter Friday - was part of the study team.  The Executive Summary is short and has good visuals.  I recommend a visit.  The whole study is much longer and requires a serious commitment.

I would point out the numbers and percentages of people with problems compared to the numbers and percentages of people who get help.  It's an impossible gap and probably explains not only a lot of our homelessness problems, but also accounts for dysfunctional families which create a population of kids with serious issues.  (The chart format is different in the original, but I think all the data are there.)

YOUTH

Grant Funds in State Fiscal Year 2013

Risk Behaviors 1                               
Approximately One in Five
4,641 traditional high school students had a moderate or high-risk behavior for substance use.
• The prevalence of this behavior was similar for male
and female students (20.3% compared to 16.4%)
Mental Health Issues 1, 2         
Approximately One in Four
7,214 traditional high school students experienced a mental health issue in the past year.
• The prevalence of mental health issues among female
students was higher than among male students (37.8%
compared to 19.4%)
Among 9 to 17 year olds, 5,550 (6%) were estimated to have had a serious emotional disturbance in the past year.

Youth Clients Served 4     
Approximately One in Nine
12,147 unique youth clients were served with support from state Medicaid and/or behavioral health grant funds.
Breakdown of Youth Served
By diagnosis category:
• Substance Use Disorder: 1,324 (11%)
• Serious Emotional Disturbance: 9,350 (77%) • Mild or Moderate Mental Illness: 2,215 (18%) • Co-occurring Disorders: 482 (4%)By gender:Male: 7,129 (59%) | Female: 5,018 (41%)

ADULTS

Total Prevalence 3         
Approximately One in Four
145,790 adults needed treatment for illicit drug or alcohol use and/or experienced a mental illness in the past year.
Alcohol & Illicit Drug Use 3    
Approximately One in Nine
62,815 adults needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol problem.

• Estimated need for treatment among low income
  adults was higher than among adults above 138% of the
  federal poverty level (16.7% compared to 11.5%)
• Estimated need for treatment among adult males
  was higher than among adult females (15.5% compared
  to 7.5%)
• About one-third of those that needed treatment
  (22,990 adults) also experienced a mental illness in the past year
  Mental Illness 3                    
  Approximately One in Five   
  105,966 adults had a mental illness in the past year.

• 61,176 adults (11.2%) had a mild mental illness, 23,487 adults (4.3%) had a moderate mental illness and 21,302
  (20%) had a serious mental illness
• Estimated mental illness among low income adults was
  higher than among adults above 138% of the federal
  poverty level (23.8% compared to 19.4%)
• Estimated mental illness among adult females was

higher than among adult males (24% compared to 15%)

Adult Clients Served 4              
Approximately One in Twenty
27,728 unique adult clients
were served with support from
state Medicaid and/or behavioral health grant funds.
Breakdown of Adults Served
By diagnosis category:
• Substance Use Disorder: 14,442 (52%)
• Serious Mental Illness: 16,841 (61%)
• Mild or Moderate Mental Illness: 2,061 (7%) • Co-occurring Disorders: 3,690 (13%)By gender:Male: 11,480 (41%) | Female: 16,232 (59%)

Behavioral health services in Alaska are funded through a mix of Medicaid, state and federal grants, Indian Health Service Compact and other Tribal funds, private insurance, self-pay and uncompensated care so the utilization data analyzed tells only part of the story. Nonetheless, the report’s findings reinforce what we heard from stakeholders: the behavioral health needs of many Alaskans are going unmet resulting in higher costs and poorer health outcomes.

Trump Acts On Old Legal Advice - What To Do When Facts And Law Are Against You

As I listen to the conservative responses to the Trump-Zelensky phone call,  I can't help thinking about the old advice to attorneys on how to handle cases under different circumstances.  I found the website Quote Investigator that traces the history of  the old adage.  I've picked two variations here that are directly relevant:

1.  Pound the table

"You don’t have to be a lawyer to recognize the admonition of Oliver Wendell Holmes quoted by Scotty Mattraw in Printing Buyers’ News: 'If you’re weak on the facts and strong on the law, pound the law. If you’re weak on the law and strong on the facts, pound the facts. If you’re weak on both, pound the table.'”

At first Trump argued the facts - he offered his doctored transcript of the call and said it was perfect. When people condemned the facts, he argued the law - what he did was perfectly OK.  (And in the world Trump lives in, he believes that his word is the law.)

This situation is a little different than a courtroom trial. Besides the laws concerning his quid pro quo demand of Zelensky, there's also the law and custom surrounding impeachment.  And the conservatives are now full force condemning the process - it's secret (though Republican reps are there), there's no due process (we're in the investigatory phase, not the trial phase yet), and refusing to cooperate in any way.

2.  Abuse the other fellow's attorney

In addition,  Trump is following his own favorite personal strategy which is reflected in this variation of the first quote:

Such tactics have been compared to the story of a young lawyer who was consulting an older lawyer as to how he should act in the conduct of various cases.  He said, 'What shall I do if the law is against me?' The older man said, 'Come out strong on the facts.' 'What shall I do if the facts are against me?' 'Come out strong on the law.' 'Then, what shall I do if both are against me?' 'Abuse the other fellow’s attorney.'”  

In Trump's case he abuses everyone, not just the attorney.  He abuses the witnesses, those conducting the inquiry, and anyone else who shows any sign of disloyalty to Trump.  And he continues to call for outing the whistleblower - again totally besides the point as well as against the law.  It's not the whistleblower who matters, but what he or she alleges.  And from what I can tell, it's basically well confirmed.  The only time the whistleblower's identity might matter is if the complaint were bogus and made the way Trump's tirades are made - to damage someone personally.  And in those cases, it would be up to the organization to appropriately punish the whistleblower.  Attacking the whistleblower personally, instead of debunking the allegations, intimidates other potential whistleblowers.  And, of course, that's one of Trump's objectives.

It's important to remember all this when listening to Trump and his cult members (no, I don't think that is hyperbole):

Pounding on the table and abusing your opponents are the strategies you take when the facts and law are not on your side.  

And as many have pointed out, they are the tactics of a 2 year old's tantrum.

I'd note that these tactics are part of Trump's White Male Privilege.  Just look at how quickly Katie Hill left the House.  Though I'd add that brazen lack of ethics plus power and money make it possible to loudly defy the law and decency.  Al Franken and Katie Hill respect the law and decency enough to step down rather than fight. But Trump and his supporters are NEVER wrong.

Buzzfeed Gets 500 of 18 Billion Pages From Mueller Investigation

From Buzzfeed:

"Beginning last April, BuzzFeed News has pursued five separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to pry loose all the subpoenas and search warrants that Mueller’s team executed, as well as all the emails, memos, letters, talking points, legal opinions, and interview transcripts it generated. In short, we asked for all the communications of any kind that passed through the special counsel’s office. We also requested all of the documents that would reveal the discussions among Attorney General Bill Barr, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, and other high-ranking officials about whether to charge President Donald Trump with obstruction.

Justice Department lawyers said the volume of records at issue could total 18 billion pages and could take centuries to produce. . .

Today, in response to a court order, the Justice Department has released the first installment of documents: 500 pages of summaries of FBI interviews with witnesses, available here for the first time. Another installment will be released every month for at least the next eight years."

They ask readers to look through the documents and send tips to one of their reporters, Jason Leopold.

So I browsed a little.   Thought I'd skip toward the end.  But scrolling down I landed in the middle.  There was an email from Steve Bannon to Jared Kushner warning him off of Paul Manafort a few days before the 2016 election:

"We need to avoid this guy like the plague
They are going to try and say the russians worked with wiki leaks to give this victory to us
Paul is a nice guy but can't let word get out he is advising us.
Get Outlook for IOS."

This is on page 238.  But when I went back and read the rest of the Buzzfeed article, they'd already highlighted this email and several others in the range of pages I was looking at.


But here's one on page 286, that is ironically interesting.  It's an email from Sergei Millian, the head of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce to Catherine Belton, a reporter for the Financial Times.  She had sent him questions and he was answering them one by one.

Sorry, It was hard getting clear copies.

This is Sept 2016.  This Russian-American promotor of business between the US and Russia is telling the reporter that Obama built favorable business climate.  Was this what he really thought or was this a way to make him not seem a Trump supporter?

And here he warns that policies such as 'using trade as a threat'  are the instruments of "politically weak minds."  Again, are these his real thoughts or his Chamber of Commerce pitch?I Or is this prescient jab at Trump?

I picked up my handy guide to all the players in the Mueller and Impeachment investigations, Seth Abramson's Proof of Conspiracy.  The index gives me "Millian, Sergei, 36-37."

There we learn that Millian, "a Kremlin-linked Russian national, Soviet-born businessman Sergei Millian - who will shortly "offer to serve as a go-between for a Belarusian author with ties to the russian government and the Trump campaign" - contacts George Papadopoulos and says he has "inside knowledge and direct access to the top hierarchy in Russian politics,"  Later he contacts him via Facebook "telling him he wants to 'share with [him] a disruptive technology that might be instrumental in your political work for the campaign."

[I'd note that in an earlier page to Belton, he denied being Russian.  Is this an error in Abramson's source?  He was from Belarus, and would have been born into the Soviet Union, not Russia.]

Abramson also says that "Millian is later revealed to be a key source - if an 'unwitting' one - for much of the dossier complied by former M16 Russia desk chief Christopher Steele in 2016 an published in January 2017 by Buzzfeed News.


There's a lot in just the 500 pages.  And Buzzfeed says after this first 500 page document

"Another installment will be released every month for at least the next eight years."

Here's the link to the documents.


I'd note that emptywheel says this is just the DOJ releasing documents just before and pertinent to the Donald Stone trial and that it will be a way to hide other information.  I didn't quite understand how it puts other info out of reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Alaskans For Better Elections Now Have Petitions To Collect Signatures To Change Alaska's Elections To Ranked Choice Voting

A group called "Alaskans for Better Elections" has gathered enough signatures to get an initiative approved.  They've received enough valid signatures, however the Lt Governor, on the advice of the Attorney General has said the initiative was not valid because it covered more than one topic.  Alaskans for Better Elections has appealed that decision and a judge agreed with them.  The State is asking that the group should not be allowed to collect signatures before their appeal of the judge's decision is heard by the Supreme Court.

But this tweet suggests that the judge didn't buy the argument to delay the collection of signatures and the initiative petition to change how Alaskans vote and how large campaign contributions are reported is now available for signatures.  You can visit the website here..

Look who just picked up 500 petition booklets to get help get more open, transparent, and fair elections in our great state! Who is ready to sign? #alaska #akleg #RankedChoiceVoting #elections pic.twitter.com/htUuexf20A

— jason (@jgrenn) November 1, 2019

And, as I see it, the only reason to delay the collection of signatures would be to keep the initiative off the ballot, since they need to collect enough signatures before the Legislature goes back into session in mid-January.  Let them start now and if the Supreme Court agrees with the Lt. Governor's finding this initiative is invalid, they'll stop collecting signatures.  What's the big deal?  Unless you don't want them to get enough signatures in time.

What's the Difference  Between Initiative And Petition?
Initiative is the document that outlines what changes are wanted Petition with a summary of the initiative is what people sign

BUT, MORE IMPORTANT, what's the initiative going to do?


The initiative has three components, according to their website::

• End "Dark Money" in Alaska Elections
• Open Our Primaries to All Alaskan Voters
• Form Ranked Choice Voting Elections

Dark Money
Their counter to the US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v allowance of unlimited campaign contributions is basically this:

"All individuals and committees will have to immediately disclose the name and the true source of all donations over $2,000."

 Primaries

Right now, the state funds primary elections.
The Republicans choose to make their primary open to Republicans and people who are not affiliated with another party.
The Democratic primary is open to all voters and includes candidates from various parties (except Republicans) and independent candidates.
Voters must pick either the one party ballot or the other.

The ballot initiative would change that.  There would be one primary and all candidates would be listed for each office.  And this is supposed to work because of the third component of the initiative.

Form Ranked Choice Voting
Their website explains it this way:

In a ranked choice voting (RCV) election, voters are able to rank candidates in order of choice - 1st choice, 2nd choice, and so on. When the votes are counted, if a candidate has a majority of 1st choices, they win - just like today. But if no candidate receives a majority of 1st choices, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and voters who ranked that candidate 1st have their vote instantly go to their 2nd choice. This process continues until a candidate is elected with a majority of voters’ support.

Their website explains all this in a little more detail, but still in an easy to read format.


Here's the text of the initiative.  I promise that fewer than 5% (that's probably high) voters will read the whole thing.  It's 25 pages long.  Basically, it goes through the existing Alaska Election statutes and rewrites them to enact the changes they want.  Section by section.

The disclosure requirement seems like a good idea, just so voters know in a timely fashion who is making large donations to support a candidate.

The primary change is technically necessary to make the ranked choice voting work.

And ranked choice voting is designed to elect the candidates they support most, by allowing their second, third, etc. choice be known.  This should end two similar candidates splitting the vote between them and allowing a third, but less popular candidate to win.  It also means that two Republicans or two Democrats could end up on the final ballot.  This happens in California's new system, but they don't have ranked voting, just a combined primary.

Votes have been counted by machine for a while now.  But double checking by hand counting was pretty easy.  Checking the accuracy of the voting machine programs will be much harder if this initiative wins.  That means we'll need some sophisticated procedures to make sure the machines are programmed correctly and aren't tampered with.

Their website says Maine already does this and a number local governments do too.

One more thing.  Alaskans For Better Elections has all their disclosure documents on their website.  They also disclose that their three biggest donors are organizations Outside of Alaska.  That's not necessarily bad (unless your against a candidate or an initiative).  In this case, they seem to be getting money from national organizations that support the idea of ranked choice voting, but otherwise don't have a substantive interest in Alaska politics.  I'm guessing they aren't interested in exploiting our election for their financial gain.  Just to support their vision of fairer elections.

The three biggest funders are (the links go to Ballotopedia or Influencewatch descriptions:

Action Now - John and Laura Arnold Foundation
Represent Us
American Promise - Jeffrey Clements

Ted Talks As News - Trees And Food -The Good News The MSM Tends Not To Cover

I woke up early this morning - too early to get up, but late enough that I was awake.  So I plugged in the headset for my phone and listened to a Ted Talk.  Suzanne Simard "How Trees Talk To Each Other."

No, this wasn't some vague imagining about talking trees.  It was based on Simard's childhood and  education.  She did studies with isotopes to see how they moved from one tree to another through the mitochondria in the soil.  And how all this interconnected-ness makes forests more resilient to things like climate change.

This isn't technically 'news' because this talk is about ten years old.  And it's based on research she began that's much older.  And I've heard hints of this, but never anything so coherent that it made sense to me.  But don't take my word for it:

Next up was Jamie Oliver - Teach Every Child About Food

Screenshot from Jamie Oliver's Ted Talk

His basic message is that food is the number one cause of death in the United States. He backs it up with this chart. All the ones in red are 'diet-related diseases.' (Heart disease, cancers, stroke, diabetes.)

Jamie is a chef.  He talks about power - about fast food and markets owned by corporations and that food now is  largely processed and full of extra ingredients, while 30 years ago it was mostly fresh and local.  (This talk was given in 2010, so that would get us back  to 1980.)  He talks about portion size and labeling problems.  At home and school kids are eating food that will kill them.
Milk, he says, now has sugar added, though he's talking about chocolate milk. He uses a wheel barrow full of sugar cubes to show how much sugar kids get from five years of school lunch milk. School food systems are run by accountants, not food experts.

Lightbulbs turned on above my head.  This isn't new to me in general. I grew up when most food was fresh or lightly processed and fruits were only available in season.  Growing up in LA meant we probably had more fresh vegetables and fruits all year than people in colder climates.   But he's talking about more than that. He's talking about taking the power back from the big agricultural corporations.  And he thinks they should be sued like the tobacco industry was.  So, you can understand why this stuff doesn't get much attention on corporate media which makes its money from advertisements from, to a great extent, the food industry - fast food, processed food, soft drinks, beer, etc.

Then came Britta Riley and A Garden In My Apartment

This talk is about hydroponics. .  Just growing some of our own food, she quotes Michael Pollen, is one of the best things we can do for the environment.  This is what got her started.  Listening to experts talk about the food problem, she quotes Pollen further, is precisely how we got to where we are.  NASA's hydroponics in space inspired her.  She wanted to get into this, but didn't want to copy the food corporations, so she set up a website where they displayed their products and they crowd sourced to keep improving the systems.  They have 18,000 people connected through the website.  R&DIY - she calls it Research and Development Do It Yourself.  Anyone around the world can duplicate these products themselves for free.   And this is now a community.  We should ditch the term consumer and get behind the people doing things themselves.  The website - rndiy.com - isn't working now.  Not sure where to find this community today.

Followed by Roger Doiron - My Subversive (Garden) Plot

Doiron took the whole idea of gardens as a way to take back food and make it healthier and fresher a little further.  His plot is to radically alter the balance of power, not just in our own country, but around the world.  Here's what he says near the beginning:  Food is a form of energy, but also a form of power.  When we encourage people to grow their own food, we're encouraging them to take power into their hands, power over their diets, power over their health, and power over their pocketbooks.  And we're also talking about taking that power away from someone else.  Those actors who have power now over food and health.  See gardening as a healthy gateway drug to food freedom.  Not long after you start a garden, you starting thinking, "I might want to learn how to cook."  He talks about Michele Obama's vegetable garden at the White House that he helped on.  And the food needs of the planet as the human population grows   Plenty to chew on.



Then, finally, I heard Ron Finley - A guerrilla Gardener in South Central LA

He got in trouble with the City of LA because he planted a food court in front of his house on the strip between the sidewalk and the street with edibles.

Screen shot from Ron Finley Ted Talk

The city owns that land, he said, but the homeowner is supposed to keep it up. Fortunately he got enough publicity to overcome that obstacle.  His job is to spread the idea of growing your own food, and in particularly in neighborhoods that are food deserts.  He says that LA owns enough vacant lots to create 20 Central Parks.


The corporate news media today - and that includes to a certain extent National Public Radio - are focused on offering a constant diet of breaking news, with headlines and video, aimed at attracting the most possible eyeballs.  We get short vignettes that often disappear and we never learn what happened.  Or the opposite, as with the never ending election coverage, where the focus is on the horserace, not where the horses are headed.  We only hear about who's up this week, this day, this hour.  Every new poll becomes top news.  Conflict sells.  What we need is cool headed analysis of the policy proposals and how candidates plan to carry them out.

What these Ted Talks suggest to me is there is a lot going on in the US (and the world), but it's not initiated by corporations and it doesn't get much coverage.  It's people taking control of their own food, in this case, something that agribusiness, which advertises widely on corporate media, doesn't really want being covered.  These people powered activities don't get covered much, unless there's conflict or violence involved - say the Keystone Pipeline standoff last year.

So I suggest you watch and listen to the positive things people are doing all over the country, the innovations that come from crowdsourcing, or in response to the disgust with the hazardous - to the environment, to health, to sustainability, to family finance - offerings of corporate America.  Check out the endless options from Ted Talks and go looking for other podcasts that do similar things.  There's lots of good news out there.  It doesn't need blood covered to be covered by the news.