-----Original Message-----
From: ****** ******** [mailto:**********@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 1, 2004 8:15 AM
To: Jon ******
I
think you posting of Kevins comments is unethical and lacks rispect for his
wishes. You of all people should understand what he is going
through. You were homeless as well.
If you have read his blog
the past few months then you know he has hard a hard time lately and needs
support. You should be writting about what he can do to help himself
since you were able to find a home and now the system. You could email him
and share with him how you got a home.
Kevin has no money and has
no home. He is just a homeless man trying to have his say in a very harsh
envirement. I hope you will try and help him instead of trying to keep him
down.
Peace out,
******
Dear ******,
First off, the comments posted on Kevin Barbieux’s blog are not under his copyright and are not under his ownership. I never even entertained the idea until he started rabidly censoring long time readers and supporters comments. A lot of these people have given him lots of money through his pay pal account and he showed no gratitude what so ever by deleting their supportive posts with no explanation. He doesn’t even say thanks to his supporters or donators.
I think you are suffering from fanboy/fangirl syndrome that I think we have all experienced at one time by reading Kevin’s blog. I give credit when credit is due and his blog was the first experience I had with web logs and he inspired me to write about my experiences as well. I emailed him several times offering to send money (I had almost nothing to give) and some computer parts for his laptop. He ignored me. I also sent many emails about section 8 and local mental health programs in his area that were very low cost or free. He ignored those as well; no thank you or even a reply. This was before I pissed him off by asking him why he didn’t do what it takes to support his children despite his ex-wife. My ex-wife couldn’t have kept me from my kids for any reason. I would have fought like hell to be apart of their lives. I would have at least sent money as much as I could for clothes or food. Children only grow up once.
Kevin is very adept at playing on people’s sympathies through using the homeless card or through religion. You have fallen hook, line, and sinker into his web. I was once there as well but “saw the light” and wizened up to his game. He speaks of how harsh or hard his life is but never does anything lasting or proactive to get out of his current situation. He dangles moments of hope and a homed lifestyle before us but it eventually cramps his “style” and it’s back to blogging in a coffee shop all day and sleeping in the rescue mission at night. How hard of a life can that be? He is not going hungry by any means I assure you. He has said himself that you have to be pretty clueless to go hungry in America and I agree.
Kevin has never sought help with his mental illness or tried to get involved with the many, many programs available to help people in need. I live in a rural location in the south and I was still able to get my (very expensive) medications for $2 dollars a bottle and see a psychiatrist for free at the local county run mental health office. Kevin lives in a large urban location with a much broader network of support available to him. He has countless options to try such as HUD/section 8, food stamps (if you are homeless/indigent they have an expedited program that gets you food stamps in SEVEN days in most states), vocational rehabilitation, county mental health, social security disability. The list could go on and on.
Kevin is not as disabled or helpless as he leads his readers to believe. He once posted in a forum that he has received over $5000 dollars in donations from his pay pal account in the past two years. That is more than half my yearly income through disability and Kevin didn’t have any bills or utilities to pay. One man alone, Mr. Cheng, sent him a $1000 dollars in one day. (Another homeless blogger, Sullivan, broke this story and then he (Kevin) had to admit it on his blog. The shit hit the fan on his now defunct forums after Sullivan posted this.) What did he do with it? He got a cheap hotel room and squandered it. He could have saved that money by continuing to stay in the rescue mission and eating at the churches/mission. When I was homeless, a thousand dollars would have gotten me off the street that week. I would have found an apartment or a room to rent and put a deposit down and had money for all the deposits on my utilities and probably have money left to spare for groceries.
Kevin, nor I for that matter, were/are very good representatives of the median homeless population. If you met him on the street you would never know he was homeless. He is not unkempt and dresses well. He is obviously well fed. He panhandles on the internet and not the street corner. He spends most of his days with a donated wireless laptop in an upscale coffee shop. He doesn’t live the life of a typical homeless man. Kevin is more akin to a starving artist who chooses to be homeless for ideological reasons and not a typical homeless man who has lost his job and home to a layoff, just plain bad luck, or through substance abuse.
If you think I am full of shit then no amount of writing will persuade you. If you want other opinions from other people then here are some links for you to read. One is from a long time supporter/donator and two others are from a homeless online diarist in Tampa Florida. I am not the only one who shares these views.
Sincerely,
Andrew
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