HOMELESS IN PARADISE

DO SOMETHING CHARITABLE AND LOVING FOR THE HOLIDAYS

You have cabin fever.

You can’t get used to wearing a mask.

Your candidate lost.

Your cruise to the Caribbean got canceled due to COVID.

The toilet flushes during your work from home Zoom.

The company cut your pay by a fraction due to the pandemic.

These are minor problems. 

They are fractional reductions in quality of life while we heal physically, psychologically and politically.

People have lost their lives.

Households have lost every job that support them.

Vulnerable people are living each day in fear.

Back off the attitude.

Stop griping.

Search your soul for bias and bigotry -- erase whatever it is that’s causing those destructive thoughts and behaviors.

Do someone a favor.

Buy a grocery gift card for someone in need. Bonus points, do it anonymously.

Embrace life.

Embrace people.

Find something enchanting and interesting and life-affirming in someone who is completely different than you – It’s very easy to do.

Work to make the world a better place.

Do something hands-on to help those who are homeless, jobless, hopeless.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Super Solstice.

About the image: This was taken in the early morning in Downtown Miami. In the postcards boasting sun, sea and sand – Miami is a paradise. To the eyes of anyone who walks the Central Business District between the Miami River and Biscayne Bay – sidewalks, overhangs, vacant storefronts and space under bridges is home to hundreds of homeless people. Was it hard to take this picture? Yes. I walked past a half dozen times. But I am a street photographer and storyteller. As an advocate for people with disabilities in specific and marginalized people in general – I am compelled to tell stories (visually and in words) that are painful, sad and challenging. Harsh images, in turn, can help compel people to get involved in positive change. That is why I left this person to their hopefully peaceful slumber while capturing their heart-tugging image.

COVID-19 TEST EPIC FAIL AT MARLINS PARK IN MIAMI

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION, 3 HOURS AT SITE FOR 15 MINUTE TEST, 10 DAYS WITH NO TEST RESULTS AND ULTIMATELY LIED TO THAT WE WERE NEVER TESTED (WE HAVE PROOF THAT WE WERE THERE)

To check our health and make sure of our COVID status for those we come in contact with, we went online and scheduled appointments for the two of us.

We had that 8 a.m. first appointment of day 9-10, but took nearly 3 hours.

Follow up calls have produced an idiotic and painful answer that they have no record of our being there.

We have proof – online appointment print out, paper work plus grease pencil marking on back of our vehicle that they only do onsite.

It doesn’t matter, they failed and lie about it.

While we’re recounting the endless list of failures, here's a hint for testing site.

Don't blare loud music at tent where they draw blood/take nasal swab.

There is car engine, traffic, MIA flight path, generator noise.

You are talking through a mask, through your closed window to a person wearing a mask - no one can hear.

At free test site, train staff to accommodate people with disabilities.

Guy in charge did major discrimination, telling my wife to drive home without getting tested. I had to start phone video to make him responsive.

Tens of thousands of people with disabilities deserve better

Staff said they could not enter wheelchair ramp van to swab my wife and draw her blood.

They ignored my clear, booming voice explaining she could roll out the ramp (full or to top of it) to give them access to her same as rest of drivers rolling down their window.

Clueless, rude, discriminating staff forced delicate door to $75,000 wheelchair ramp without asking first.

This can cause damage, detected weeks later, that will destroy my wife's mobility.

Proof that we were persons tested #34 and #35 on September 10, 2020 at Marlins Park

To document this, I started taking video on my I-Phone.

The staff then threatened to remove me from the site without testing I kept exercising my basic American right of documenting incompetence and discrimination via video on my phone.

Got blood results onsite, (negative for both of us, bud advised that nasal swab results also must be read to know for sure) then told swab takes max four days for results.

Nothing online, so my wife calls to see what's up after four days.

She reached a totally unhelpful person who claimed she had zero record of our even having an appointment for September 10, when we wasted nearly half a day trying to get tested.

Worthless call to info number took more than an hour -- 20 minutes with an imbecile who insisted we had no appointment & were not tested (we have proof otherwise) then 40 minutes on hold waiting for a supervisor -- then hung up on before reaching a human.

We have no symptoms, but when you take the time to go in -- trying to be responsible -- you want to see your results.

My wife has multiple underlying conditions and is undergoing a treatment that lowers immunity.

She needs test results now.

To date, three wasted hours at Marlins Park (should take 15 minutes) = disability discrimination + unprofessional behavior + lost test results. 

My wife, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, needs results -- but it is clear that none are coming and the company making tens of millions off of testing for Florida could care less.

Who is going to fix this?