Serpentine Wall at UVa, 1952

The Serpentine Walls, only one brick thick, are one of my favorite architectural features at UVa. There have been many postcards made of these distinctive walls over the years, and for some reason I'm particularly fond of this one, from 1952. (Can you imagine today's UVa students wearing coats and ties to class every day??)

Interestingly, the image of the Serpentine Wall has been appropriated by groups as diverse as the Darden Private Equity Network ("Jefferson realized that by building a wall that curves, one uses 25% fewer bricks as compared to a straight wall. The curved wall can support itself while being only one brick thick instead of two. Jefferson's ingenuity and his prudent, economical and careful use of resources correlate with the skills needed to become a successful investor in the world of private equity") and the Serpentine Society, UVa's LGBT alumni association ("Serpentine walls are not straight, and neither are we"); the wall was also recently cited by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as an analogy for the tortuous line between church and state in this country. This is clearly one multi-talented, sinusoidal, crinkle-crankle stack of bricks!

Dr. Paul Farmer to Speak in Cville

PACEM is proud to sponsor a community presentation by Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health and subject of the best-selling 2004 book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, on Sunday, March 11, at 7:00pm at Holy Comforter Catholic Church (208 East Jefferson St. in downtown Charlottesville).

Dr. Farmer will be talking about his inspiring and path-breaking efforts to fight poverty, hunger and disease both internationally and in the U.S. (including street outreach work he's done with the homeless). The event is free to the public, but a collection will be taken to benefit PACEM.

On the following evening, March 12, Dr. Farmer will speak at UVa as a guest of the Center for Global Health to share his extensive experience in providing complex health interventions in resource-limited settings, including the treatment of HIV/AIDS and MDR-TB. That talk will be at 6:00pm in the McLeod Hall Auditorium.

Dr. Farmer is associate chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital; Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School; and a founding director of Partners In Health, an international nongovernmental organization that provides health care to, and undertakes research and advocacy on behalf of, the sick and poor. Dr. Farmer is a 1993 recipient of the prestigious "Genius Award" from the MacArthur Foundation and is the author of numerous books and articles on the plight of the world's poor.

Happy Birthday Chloe!

Today my little girl turns 7 years old. How quickly she's grown!

Everyone's birth is memorable, but Chloe made an especially vivid entrance 7 years ago. First of all, she arrived 5 minutes before the midwife did; we were doing a home birth and it was a VERY quick labor. I therefore had the unexpected joy of delivering Chloe myself (well, her mom had a role in the process too, I suppose), right in the middle of our living room floor. When Chloe's little head made its way out of the birth canal, her face was purple (!) and I quickly realized that the umbilical cord was wrapped rather tightly around her neck. Trying, with only limited success, not to panic, I made a little impromptu adjustment (I believe the technical term is "winging it") and she came out just fine with the next contraction. Then followed the eerie alignment of digits. Date of birth: 2/22/2000. Time of birth: 2:22am. Length: 20 inches. Weight: 122 ounces. Can you guess what her lucky number is??

By the way, at 2:22am on 2/22/22, Chloe turns 22 and you're all invited to the party.

Loco for LoCo

Lynn Rainville has started a great new blog (LoCoHistory) that focuses on Charlottesville and Albemarle history. Being a bit of a local history buff myself, I expect to be a regular visitor to Lynn's site. In honor of yesterday's LoCoHistory post on the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, I thought I'd share this postcard of the Reservoir from 1920:

Executive Plaza Motel, 1960s

Located on Emmet St. across from the (then) brand-new U Hall, the Executive Plaza Motel is to today's Econo Lodge-University as the Gridiron Restaurant is to today's Carmello's Ristorante Italiano.

The Myth of the Homeless Magnet

Recently, both in our local blogosphere (see, for example, here) and at last Monday's City Council meeting, some very good questions have been raised about the geographical origins of Charlottesville's homeless population. Allegations have been made that many of the people on our streets migrated here from somewhere else to take advantage of our services -- i.e., that Charlottesville has become something of a "magnet" for the homeless. This suspicion is only reenforced by comments like the following, from the Dec. 7, 2006 edition of The Hook:

According to several homeless residents, Charlottesville is a "mecca" thanks to the resources available to the homeless including the Salvation Army, Region Ten, and churches that offer daily lunches. "You can eat three squares here every day if you choose," says a self-described homeless man sitting in downtown's Lee Park, who asks that his name not be used. "There's no other place I know in Virginia like this."

And it wasn't but a few years ago that a prominent Charlottesville city official was quoted as saying, "The answer to our homeless problem is simple: Find out where all these homeless people came from, and send them back there."

Well, guess what? It's actually not that simple. Because, you see, the vast majority of homeless people in our community are from our community.

Two weeks ago, the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless conducted its annual census of our area's homeless population. In addition to fanning out to all the known homeless camps in the area to try and get a 'homeless head count,' TJACH representatives conducted surveys of 200+ people eating in local soup kitchens or staying in local shelters. Survey responses showed that a full 62% of our homeless people are originally from Charlottesville or the five surrounding counties. Of the remaining 38% of those surveyed, many of them have been living in our community for years. 82% of our homeless residents are originally from the state of Virginia.

At PACEM, we can count on two hands (out of the 150+ homeless people we've sheltered so far this winter) the number of people who were homeless when they moved to this area, and that includes a number of unfortunate souls who landed on our streets straight from prison or a mental institution. In other words, almost all of our PACEM guests were living here in our community at the time they became homeless.

I was curious to compare the numbers from TJACH's homeless census and from our PACEM knowledge base with the transient rate of our population as a whole. While I couldn't find precise data on the numbers of "come heres" vs. "from heres" for our general population, I did discover that only 53.5% of City residents, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, were even born in the state of Virginia. Albemarle's population is even less 'rooted' -- only 49.5% of its residents are from Virginia. With the large influx of new residents to Charlottesville and Albemarle since 2000, those percentages will surely be even lower at the time of the next Census.

(Another comparative statistic: of the 5 members of Charlottesville City Council, precisely 0% of us are originally from Charlottesville or the five surrounding counties. We're all "come-heres.")

Ironically, what these numbers show is that the homeless population of our community is actually substantially more rooted in our community than our area's population as a whole. That probably bears repeating: the homeless population of our community is substantially more rooted in our community than our area's population as a whole.

Homelessness in Charlottesville, as it turns out, is primarily a home-grown phenomenon.

The implications of this fact are profound. Solving our homeless problem suddenly isn't so simple as buying everyone a bus ticket back to their hometown. We ARE their hometown. They are our neighbors. They are we.

So, are we witnessing a large migration of homeless people from other parts of Virginia or other parts of the country to Charlottesville -- people choosing to pick up and move to a totally unfamiliar city, with no friends or family connections here, because they can get some free food and a cot to sleep on in a church basement for a few months? Frankly, not only does the data not support the myth of Charlottesville as a homeless magnet, but neither do the realities of human nature. It may be uncomfortable for us to admit, but we've got a problem on our hands that's largely of our own making. The good news is, solutions to this problem are within our grasp.

Gridiron Restaurant, 1960s

This restaurant was located where Carmello's Ristorante Italiano now sits, on Emmet St. across from the JPJ Arena. Back in 1968, the Gridiron advertised an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for $1.25. Those were the days...

Anyone care to share any memories you may have of this place?

Another Cville Blogger on PACEM

First was Chuck Beretz. Now, "Wags Outside" talks about his own experience with PACEM. There are many myths and stereotypes about homeless people that fall by the wayside when you spend time volunteering one-on-one with the homeless and you quickly come to realize that we all share a common humanity. Many thanks to both of these bloggers for eloquently bringing this truth to light.

UPDATE: "Wags Outside" continues his thoughts here. It's an excellent depiction of a "day in the life" (night in the life?) of a PACEM volunteer. If you'd like to learn more about volunteer opportunities with PACEM, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Adriana Nicholson, at 465-5093 or pacemga@aol.com.

Yeah, What She Said

My friend Holly Edwards has more good sense in one finger than the rest of us do in our entire bodies. As if we needed more evidence of that, she comes out with this letter to the editor from yesterday's Daily Progress, written in response to this article from Jan. 21 about the Bush Administration's plan to enact severe cuts in operating funds for public housing. As usual, Holly frames the issue much better than I ever could...

If You Want a Good Rushing Business, 1914

Apparently "Pursue Charlottesville" meant something a little racier back in 1914... :-)

Radio Days

I was a guest on Coy Barefoot's "Charlottesville-Right Now" WINA radio show yesterday, talking about affordable housing and transportation issues, and Sean Tubbs of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network was kind enough to post the podcast on his site. You can listen to the interview by clicking here. Julian Taliaferro has a great radio voice; mine hovers around cringe-worthy. Nevertheless, many thanks to Coy and Sean for making this happen.

Chip Harding for County Sheriff

I see that Chip Harding is on the verge of declaring himself a candidate for Albemarle County Sheriff. I'm a City Democrat and Chip's a County Republican so I doubt it makes a lick of difference what I think of his candidacy, but I will say that Chip's a good guy and he's done some damn fine work on the statewide DNA database (among other causes), so I wish him well in his campaign. He and I did the Sorensen Candidate Training Program together last year and I know he's going to run a good race.

My question is, why in this day & age do we continue to elect our Sheriffs? (Or our Commissioners of Revenue, Clerks of Court, Treasurers, or Soil & Water Conservation District Directors for that matter?) Is it just a relic of a bygone era, when all of these positions carried a lot more political weight, or does there truly remain a compelling public interest in maintaining these as elected offices? I have no desire to wage any kind of battle to "de-elect" these positions, but I am curious as to why we still consider them "election-worthy" when there are many unelected positions in local govt. whose duties are just as important (if not more so) than these.