Author Julia Dinsmore on Homelessness (Part 3)

This is the closing portion of an interview with Julia Dinsmore, author of My Name is Child of God... Not "Those People": A First Person Look a Poverty.

E: One of the problems that I think we have here in America, is that people who are middle class, the majority, have too much to lose to want to overthrow the system. They can see the injustice, they can see the wrongs, but they fear risking their livelihood, their all, for something like that. It's unfortunate. So part of your fight is to eliminate poverty but the reality is, do you ever see it happening? Because I feel like our politicians don't have the gumption or they're too afraid to do whatever it takes.

Julia: Yeah. They're handcuffed to their constituencies. But so often they're handcuffed to big corporate wealth, and to this ridiculous idea of the free market job. We have chosen an economic system that doesn't even work, by definition, at full employment. When I learned that I thought, “Oh my gosh, the poor have been doing the world a great service in our poverty, for a very long time. You'd think they would have been treating us better. You know? So that someone's kid can get fat and lay by a swimming pool. When you really want to break it down, I'm amazed. I never ever learned that for it to work right, it starts going haywire any time we reach full employment.

E: Some economists have said that a healthy economy is 5% unemployment. Well 5% is 5 million out of every 100 million so you've got 5 million people who are struggling to find meaningful work for their lives and a place to fit in that doesn't exist, and right now unemployment is 10%.

Julia: I know! And in our economy it's so important and so valuable and that goes back to my storytelling and midwifing others’ stories from generational poverty. I have felt called to do that. And that's why I work with the kids and the poets and always encourage other people who have not been completely destroyed by this experience to learn how to tell their stories, because there's so much value to this world that we can bring.

E: Well I appreciate the time that you gave me here, I will email you when I go ahead and blog it. I'll transcribe some of what we talked about and maybe I'll even ask more questions later.

Julia: Yes, because we're just scratching the surface.

E: Yes, we're just scratching the surface. I'm just trying to draw some attention to your book.

Julia: I love that, thank you. Could you mention, to0, the Give Us Your Poor CD?

E: Is that available on Amazon.com?

Julia: Yes it is. Give us your Poor. We've got Bon Jovi, we've got Bruce Springsteen, we’ve got Natalie Merchant… she chose a song by a girl from Duluth, my son's ex-girlfriend. She was only 14 when she wrote her song. I had just gotten home from Washington DC at the national coalition for the homeless conference, and I said, “Can you write a song?” because she had experienced a lot of homelessness, and she wrote this song, and we recorded it and sent it in. Natalie Merchant picked it and it is a hot track. And then Danny Glover does two of my pieces that are on that CD as well. There's a beautiful, beautiful 19 tracks. There's a cut called Land of 10,000 Homeless that is interviews with men women and children on the streets of the Twin Cities set to music.

E: I see that Pete Seeger's on it, as well as Tim Robbins, John Sebastian…

Julia: I think that it's so valuable to look at progress like this because it shows what we can do. This is a CD to end homelessness, and to let people who are experiencing homelessness get together with rich famous people to collaborate and do something. When we had our world release party in Boston, we raised 20,000 dollars to send little Kyra Middleton, who sang Boll Weevil on it, to college. And her family is permanently housed now. It's my dream to have a Give us Your Poor concert in the Twin Cities with Bon Jovi and Natalie Merchant and local musicians. It’s important to see what we can do.

E: Thank you.

The rest of the interview involved off topic discussions about my upcoming art show and other things. Julia has a good spirit, is thoughtful and perceptive. But as I post the last piece this morning, it feels as if the task she has set before us -- eliminating homelessness -- is truly insurmountable. The problems are so entrenched, the systems so broken. But this is an essential first step... being aware of the extent of the problem, and the need to keep it in front of us, not swept into a corner or under the rug. Be sure to check out the CD Give us your Poor. And have a reflective Fourth of July weekend.