HEAR US E-News July 2009

To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping. --Chinese Proverb

As HEAR US begins our 5th year, we anticipate even greater challenges. But our tasks are nothing compared to those trying to cope in these tumultuous times, or those of you trying to help families and teens survive and thrive.

HEAR US is more committed than ever to give voice and visibility to homeless kids to help them and you. And with unprecedented growth of homelessness nationwide, every effort is needed to inspire a compassion epidemic in schools, communities and legislative chambers.

Thanks to our volunteer web guru Dan Riefstahl of Pixel Point Creative, we have a new newsletter design. His help is indicative of assistance HEAR US has received from several generous and talented people over the past 4 years. Thanks, Dan, and thanks to all of you!

Diane

Can You Use Some Good News? With times as tough as they are, good news is rare. This newsletter will share some positive happenings and maybe brighten your day. Please pass it on to your colleagues and friends who may need a ray of hope. (We don't share our list, nor do we bug you.)

Making the Big Time! Those familiar with the HEAR US documentary series (all on one DVD) My Own Four Walls know it’s a powerful tool to strengthen audiences’ compassion for homeless children and youth. MOFW's potential audience will soon greatly expand. HEAR US received the invitation to screen MOFW at the Paso Robles Film Festival in November! Clint Eastwood was there last year!

Not just another film festival, this one will include documentaries on “the state and fate” of children and youth in this country. HEAR US is honored to be invited and looks forward to expanding MOFW's reach.

Diane will head to Paso Robles, CA after presenting at the NAEHCY Conference in Denver. (If you have never been to a NAEHCY conference, go! You’ll recharge your batteries, get a lot of good ideas, and learn ways you can do your job even better.)

HEAR US ‘Learning Curve Express’ to Visit Communities Soon! In what promises to be the most ambitious (and grueling) trip for Diane, the HEAR US Learning Curve Express (Diane & Tillie) will head out this fall to non-urban locations across the country with 2 purposes:

• recruit and film articulate spokespersons who know homelessness from experience—particularly those in motels and/or doubled-up with others, to give them the opportunity to...
• inform (in person and/or via YouTube) Members of Congress and community members unfamiliar with realities facing homeless families and youth, especially those couch surfing, in motels, etc. about perils of life outside homeless shelters.

The latest disappointing vote on the definition of homeless illustrated the steep learning curve facing some legislators, bureaucrats and even advocacy groups. Homelessness comes in many forms. Community responses vary. Some have a decent safety net for some homeless families/teens, but most don’t. Invisible homeless students don’t get into school or get shifted around needlessly. And too many legislators and Americans blithely believe the latest HUD report that barely mentions the existence and plight of invisible homeless families.

Diane will map out a cross-country route, her 5^th and most determined journey, relying on local community activists to connect—in person or virtually—the experts and the lawmakers. HEAR US will use YouTube and media to get word out. But she needs your help!

Do you have families staying in motels, rotating couch-to-couch, house to house? Do you have Members of Congress who need, um, remedial lessons on what homeless kids go through? If you’re interested in hosting a Learning Curve Express visit, contact Diane.

National Hunger & Homelessness Week Time to get ready! It's the week of Nov. 21st. HEAR US has excellent tools to focus on the often-ignored children and teens as well as adults:

• It's About the Children--3 poignant children's books by Pat Van Doren
• Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness compelling book by Diane Nilan
• My Own Four Walls and REACH: Connect Your Children to Education DVDs to

REVIEWS WANTED! Are you among the growing number of people who have seen My Own Four Walls? Would you be interested in submitting a short (2-3 sentences max) review? We'd love to hear from you!

JULY SALE DAYS ENDING SOON! HEAR US newsletter subscribers and their friends are invited to save on orders placed in July. But July is fast coming to an end! Check our last newsletter to see how you can save.

Diane's schedule Soon Diane will be hitting the road. Check her travel schedule and explore possibilities of having the Learning Curve Express visit your community.

Inspired to give to a good cause? HEAR US needs and greatly appreciates support of all amounts. If you can donate a little or a lot, we'd be honored and we'll use it wisely! And your orders also support our work. All proceeds benefit HEAR US.

HOMELESSNESS in the NEWS HEAR US tracks and posts stories. Check it out! YIKES!

To subscribe It just takes a moment!

HEAR US Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations tax-deductible as law allows.
1163 E Ogden Ave., #705-329, Naperville IL 60563 630-225-5012
info@hearus.us
www.hearus.us

California Dreaming for Homeless Kids

[Naperville, IL, July 24, 2009] Scattered across America in backwater towns, nondescript cities and dusty rural communities are 75 young people who have had an astounding impact on millions of people nationwide. "My Own Four Walls," the acclaimed documentary chronicling these courageous homeless children and youth filmed and produced by HEAR US Inc., will be screened this fall at the prestigious Paso Robles Digital Film Festival

"This festival provides a tremendous opportunity to let faces of children and youth without homes be seen and their voices heard," exclaims Diane Nilan, whose unconventional approach to making this documentary began with selling her home and possessions in 2005. Nilan's Naperville-based nonprofit organization, HEAR US Inc., is devoted to giving voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. She's made 4 solo cross-country trips in her road-weary RV to find, film and empower invisible homeless families and teens.

As many families prepare to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, participants of the Paso Robles festival will join with organizers who created an event that is in Paso Robles, CA.

"...deeply dedicated to shedding light in the darkness of the millions of homeless, runaway and missing children and youth in these

United States of America..."

Festival producer Benford Standley contacted Nilan, HEAR US president, with the invitation for My Own Four Walls, a 20-minute glimpse of the plight and promise of children and teens who, along with more than 1.5 million other young people in America, experienced homelessness.

Nilan ponders the November event and offers her thoughts, "My dream would be to bring the stars of this show to this festival, to honor the young people who resolutely stood up to share their poignant stories with the rest of the nation and world, and let them serve as the powerful reminder that our nation's commitment to children, the hope of our future, needs rekindling."

This intrepid RVer is making preparations for her most ambitious cross-country journey ever, an endeavor called, appropriately enough, Learning Curve Express, to inform and inspire lawmakers and the general public about invisible homelessness.

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Contact Diane Nilan, 630-267-5424

June 2009 HEAR US E-Blast

HEAR US E-Blast June 2009
view as a web page

(I'm stuck with this UGLY format--at least for this time around--for our monthly newsletter. If I get the hang of a program that I'm supposed to use, well, this newsletter might look different/better next month! Diane)

Summer--Here's Hoping... Most people welcome the end of the school year. This year, with budget crises abounding, job loss, cutbacks, and greater uncertainties face school and human service personnel just about everywhere. Families are falling into homelessness at an unprecedented rate. It may all seem bad, but it's not. Here's a story to make your day...and more from the HEAR US media collection.

Need something to celebrate in these bleak times? It's the 15th anniversary of "Charlie's Bill." If you're a McKinney-Vento liaison asking what is Charlie's Bill, well, buckaroo, here's a story for you...(excerpt from my book, Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness) The boy in our logo is Charlie...

Year-end Close-out SALE!! HEAR US has some overstock--and we're clearing our shelves! SAVE BIG! Stretch those grant dollars! Limit one FREE offer per order. Sale ends July 31 or as supplies last. FAX, EMAIL or SNAIL MAIL orders. Credit Cards Accepted. ORDER FORM

• MOFW '08 DVD --reg. $40, now $10 @ with $100+ order
  

FREE STUFF:

• Original My Own Four Walls DVD -- FREE with every order over $100! or
  
• REACH DVD--reg. $20, FREE with $200+ orders

Make MOFW work for you! The hardest working tool in your box should be My Own Four Walls. The documentaries and REACH training video (view free) on the MOFW 09 DVD can remover barriers and enlighten all kinds of audiences on McKinney-Vento homeless ed and just homelessness in general. Download (PDF) the Viewers' Guides. Besides the obvious--training educators--here's a plethora of other possible uses:

Youth groups, homeless experience events, police/fire/EMT trainings, community meetings, higher education classes, scout meetings, religious services or education classes, and more...

Sad, but we're not quitting! The May vote on the definition of homeless in the HEARTH Act didn't go well, to say the least. NAEHCY's tenacious Barbara Duffield and her intrepid team of advocates worked with a growing number of enlightened legislators, but it wasn't enough--this time.


So, to further educate lawmakers, HEAR US is planning the most ambitious cross-country tour ever, for now called the Learning Curve Express. We will need help from people across the country who believe kids without a place to call home should get the most help possible, even if they're living outside HUD's current inadequate definition of "homeless."

To keep doing what we're doing, and to do even more, we need your support. Buying our stuff helps a lot! Or join the growing number of HEAR US donors who chip in small amounts each month (or big amounts!). Please help!

More details in our next newsletter. See you soon!

SHARE THIS NEWSLETTER. To subscribe, click here. Our mailing list is PRIVATE!

EVENTS Illinois friends--join me at the July 11th Community Restoration Economics forum in Elgin

New HEAR US Video Teaches Lesson Behind Bars

From behind bars, “Margo” learned an important lesson—her daughter did not need to change schools when she went to jail and the teenager moved in temporarily with her grandmother on the other side of town. After viewing the newly-released HEAR US video, “REACH—Connect Your Children to Education,” narrated by NBC-5 Chicago reporter LeeAnn Trotter, she now knows how to make the law work for her kids.

“I wish I had known this before she changed schools,” lamented Margo as she discussed her daughter’s case with HEAR US president Diane Nilan. Margo’s daughter would have been able to remain in her school under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act, something she and other parents now can learn from the new HEAR US video.

Having the REACH film available online gives parents or caretakers of children a chance to learn about a law that has been in effect nationally for 7 years. An accompanying brochure reiterates the information. It’s a law Nilan was instrumental in getting passed, first in her home state of Illinois back in 1994, and then on the federal level, championed by Congresswoman Judy Biggert (IL-13/R), in 2001. Nilan, in her well-traveled RV (home/office), is heading on her 4^th cross-country venture across the nation’s backroads filming interviews for her newest documentary and giving presentations.

In addition to free viewing online, HEAR US announced that the REACH DVD may be purchased by jails, prison ministries, social service agencies or anyone wanting more information about the homeless education law.

Cook County (IL) Sheriff Tom Dart, who as a state legislator was a sponsor of the Illinois Education for Homeless Children Act, observed,

“Instead of letting kids fall through the cracks, HEAR US’ REACH film provides a roadmap for the educational rights to which each of these children are entitled.”

Dart paved the way for HEAR US to film at Cook County Jail, one of the nation’s largest corrections facilities. HEAR US also surveyed dozens of women and released a report, Mom in Jail: Kids Pay the Price.

Pointing to far more than 1.5 million homeless children and youth, Nilan’s hope is that they have at least consistency of education. “It’s the one stabilizing factor in an otherwise turbulent life,” she points out. “Kids get penalized unnecessarily if people are unaware of this law, and the caregivers often get saddled with additional burdens, such as school fees and needlessly proving residency for the child.”

After spending time in the Dallas area, Nilan heads to El Paso then Las Cruces in her quest to empower homeless parents and to give voice to kids who lack a place to call home. Believing that these kids are the best spokespersons, Nilan will travel far and wide to find them.

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Jail Robs Kids of Moms and Stability

“The most potent ‘homelessness creation’ system for families is poverty,” points out Diane Nilan, a national homelessness activist and president of HEAR US Inc., “and incarceration is the ‘two’ of the one-two punch.” HEAR US Inc. today released their report, “Mom in Jail, Kids Pay the Price,” a look at how incarceration affects both moms and their kids, focusing on children’s educational and housing instability while the parent is locked up.

One of the largest county correctional institutions in the country, Cook County Jail in Chicago, provided the setting for interviews of over 75 non-violent women inmates, most awaiting further court action to determine their fate. CCJ’s Women’s Justice Services oversees various programs for women inmates, and they funded and coordinated this survey.

Board members from HEAR US, the Naperville, IL-based nonprofit organization, conducted face-to-face interviews in September to determine how parents and children fare in the indefinite and unpredictable world of criminal justice.

“Mom in Jail, Kids Pay the Price,” a snapshot that could also apply to thousands of county and local jails nationwide, underscores poverty, housing instability, and haphazard childcare arrangements that jeopardize the educational stability and well-being of vulnerable children.

The report also documents that grandparents provide a graying, frail safety net for children and grandchildren, often at great risk.

HEAR US hypothesized that children became homeless because of hardship and mobility related to the parent going to jail. Sadly this theory was confirmed in the report. Most mothers had previously been incarcerated, the majority multiple times.

Along with living in poverty, a significant number have been homeless and lack secure housing or sustainable income when they are released. When mom was locked up, school stability vanished as children’s housing became unstable.

Caretakers, sometimes family, mostly grandparents, and sometimes a succession of friends, family and acquaintances, are ill-informed about the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act which removes educational barriers for homeless children. Homeless children have the right to stay in their old school or immediately get into the school in the area where they are temporarily staying.

Nilan, instrumental in passage and implementation of this law, says “Schools often don’t ask, nor are they told, the circumstances behind a child and caregiver showing up to register at a new school. Nor are they aware that the child has the option of staying in their own school, a choice that could mean stability when it’s needed most.” Research proves that changing schools is severely detrimental to the child’s educational progress.

HEAR US plans a national campaign to distribute invaluable tools empowering incarcerated parents to protect their homeless children’s educational rights. “REACH, Connect Your Child to Education,” an 11-minute film (on DVD), will soon be available with an accompanying brochure to offer parents and caregivers information and assistance with school issues.

HEAR US gives voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. In the past 3 years, Nilan, in her RV that serves as home/office, has traveled over 65,000 backroads miles filming documentaries featuring homeless kids and conducting presentations on this issue. She’s worked over 22 years in this field, including 15 as a shelter director. “It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse,” she laments. “We need to turn the tide or homelessness will devastate even more of our nation’s children.” # # #

Tri-City Couple's Promise Gives Hope to Homeless Families

Naperville, Sept. 17, 2008 -- Selling their beloved Geneva restaurant Chez Francois two years ago, owners Chef Francois and Betsy Sanchez promised to honor their commitment to help homeless children through HEAR US, Diane Nilan’s unique nonprofit organization that gives voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. That promise is being honored on October 4th as the Sanchez’s will prepare a gourmet meal for up to 120 lucky diners.

The Bene-Feast, as this fundraising dinner has been dubbed, will feature Sanchez’s signature dish, paella, and specially made accompanying dishes. Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St. Charles is donating use of their hall for the event which will attract diners from as far away as Chicago. Local merchants from the Tri-Cities, Aurora, and Naperville have donated sizable raffle prizes. “We are so excited to be able to provide significant help to this amazing organization,” states Betsy Sanchez. “The help that HEAR US provides is extended to homeless families nationwide.”

HEAR US (www.hearus.us) is a national nonprofit that gives voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. Diane Nilan, a longtime Fox Valley advocate for homeless adults and children and former shelter director at Hesed House, started this unique organization over 3 years ago as a means to advocate for policies and actions to alleviate homelessness among families and teens. She sold her Aurora townhouse and purchased an RV which has served as her home and office as she traveled over 65,000 miles of typically backroads seeking out young homeless spokespersons.

Nilan points to some significant successes already under HEAR US’ belt: winning a major national award for “My Own Four Walls,” her documentary featuring over 75 homeless children and teens from non-urban parts of the country, produced by Northern Illinois University media professor Dr. Laura Vazquez; passage of a long-sought federal law to remove barriers to college for homeless unaccompanied teens; and testifying to Congress, staving off (for now) attempts to limit federal help for homeless families. “We have much more to do,” states Nilan. “Homelessness among families and teens is skyrocketing and we want to create a ‘compassion epidemic’ to provide relief as we fight for more resources.”

HEAR US doesn’t typically qualify for grants because it does not provide direct service, so Nilan and her Fox Valley board rely on special events, like the Bene-Feast, as well as sales of My Own Four Walls DVD and tax-deductible donations to continue the HEAR US mission.
Rising gas costs and a troubled economy loom as big concerns, but Nilan reflects, “Families in crisis face worse troubles each day. We’ve increased our support base because we’ve successfully focused on core issues and policies that could reduce homelessness nationwide. The faith that Francois and Betsy have in our mission, and the promise I’ve made to countless homeless kids nationwide keeps us believing that support will arrive in time.”
Gen
For tickets or more information, contact Nilan at 630/225-5012, diane@hearus.us.
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Honoring Two DuPage Legislators for Work with Homeless Families

PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Contact Diane Nilan 630-267-5424

[Naperville, Sept. 18, 2008] Retired State Representative Mary Lou Cowlishaw (R-Naperville) teamed up with Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-IL-13) to remove barriers often keeping homeless children from school. For their extensive efforts both women will be honored by HEAR US, Diane Nilan’s unique nonprofit organization that gives voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. They will be recognized on October 4th at the HEAR US “Bene-Feast” fund raising dinner.

The Bene-Feast will feature Tri-Cities’ Chef Francois and Betsy Sanchez’s signature dish, paella, and specially made accompanying dishes. Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St. Charles is donating use of their hall for the event which will attract diners from as far away as Chicago. Local merchants from the Tri-Cities, Aurora, and Naperville have donated sizable raffle prizes. “We are delighted to pay homage to the two women who have for years pursued opportunities for homeless children,” exclaims Diane Nilan.

HEAR US (www.hearus.us) is the Naperville-based national nonprofit that gives voice and visibility to homeless children and youth. Diane Nilan, a longtime Fox Valley advocate for homeless adults and children and former shelter director at Hesed House, started this unique organization over 3 years ago as a means to advocate for policies and actions to alleviate homelessness among families and teens. She sold her Aurora townhouse and purchased an RV which has served as her home and office as she traveled over 65,000 miles of typically backroads seeking out young homeless spokespersons.

Nilan points to some significant successes already under HEAR US’ belt: winning a major national award for “My Own Four Walls,” her documentary featuring over 75 homeless children and teens from non-urban parts of the country, produced by Northern Illinois University media professor Dr. Laura Vazquez; passage of a long-sought federal law to remove barriers to college for homeless unaccompanied teens; and testifying to Congress, staving off (for now) attempts to limit federal help for homeless families.

Mayor George Pradel of Naperville will stand in for Mrs. Cowlishaw who is unable to attend the event. He’s encouraging leadership from the entire DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference to attend.

HEAR US doesn’t typically qualify for grants because it does not provide direct service, so Nilan and her Fox Valley board rely on special events, like the Bene-Feast, as well as sales of My Own Four Walls DVD and tax-deductible donations to continue the HEAR US mission.
Rising gas costs and a troubled economy loom as big concerns, but Nilan reflects, “Families in crisis face worse troubles each day. We’ve increased our support base because we’ve successfully focused on core issues and policies that could reduce homelessness nationwide. Having such superb leadership on the critical issue of homeless kids being able to get into school has made all the difference for countless children. HEAR US is committed to find resources to continue our mission.”

For tickets or more information, contact Nilan at 630/225-5012, diane@hearus.us.
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