Homeless, sick and “thanking God for this wonderful place to live”
Reuters Boston Photographer Brian Snyder spent a very long and claustrophobic day in the tiny dark hotel suite where a homeless nurse, Tarya Seagraves-Quee, and three of her four children have been living in Massachusetts for nearly two months.
A record number of families are now being put up in motels due to high unemployment and the rising number of homes going into foreclosure, costing taxpayers $2 million per month but providing a lifeline for desperate families.
Seagraves-Quee has found refuge in a motel after losing her job in Georgia more than a year ago and going without health-care for about 10 months. She suffers from multiple sclerosis, Aspergers syndrome, anemia and lupus, and now is scared she may have cancer. Two of her children, aged 16 and 6, are autistic. After losing her job, and facing repeated physical abuse from a boyfriend, she spent $700 – almost all her savings — on airline tickets for her family to stay with relatives in Boston.
The Wilsons: Climbing out of unemployment and homelessness
Dallas, Texas contract photographer Jessica Rinaldi spent three intensive, intimate and emotional days in the lives of Annette and Frederick Wilson and their family. The Wilsons have been homeless since they moved to Texas from Minnesota after losing both their jobs and then their home.
They ended up with their children and extended family in a homeless shelter but through assistance from the National Urban League they have now found some employment and income, and finally an apartment to live in.
Jessica’s audio slideshow, narrated by the Wilsons themselves:
Annette had been a bus driver in Minneapolis and Frederick was a forklift operator, but he had already been out of work for almost year before Annette lost her job. When Annette, who is a pastor in a Pentecostal church, lost her job and could no longer make the payments on her home she prayed to God for guidance and she says that God told her to move to Texas. They arrived in Texas with only $150 and drove straight to a homeless shelter. There they learned about a local job fair where they got in contact with the National Urban League who helped them move out of the shelter and into a motel room.
Frederick, who has been making small amounts of cash working a few hours a night doing jobs that employees do not want to do themselves (like mopping or climbing into dumpsters to break down and sort the trash), continues to apply for better jobs and remains hopeful.
After close to three weeks in a homeless shelter and one week in a motel, with a new job for Annette and financial assistance from the Urban League, the Wilson family have now moved into a new apartment that they and their family can call home.
what a legacy these parents will leave for their children w/their self-less sacrifices & faith in GOD to lead them!! May GOD continue to Bless this family!!
Tim Geithner : What’s In Your Wallet?
What’s in U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s wallet? Not much.
While testifying in front of a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill Thursday Geithner was shown a $50 Billion Zimbabwean bank note (rendered worthless by Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation) by U.S. Representative John Culberson (R- TX) and asked if he had ever seen one himself. Geithner immediately pulled a piece of Zimbabwean currency out of his own pocket and showed it off to the committee. At the next break in the hearing I approached Geithner and asked how he happened to have a piece of foreign currency in his pocket. His response was “I often have some foreign currency in my wallet. Want to see?” He pulled a very thin and mostly empty wallet from his pocket.
Amongst many empty slots in the thin weathered leather wallet there could be seen three credit or debit cards with Visa and Mastercard logos (all inserted into the wallet upside down so that the card issuers could not be seen) and an old and yellowed looking identification card of indeterminate origin.
From inside the wallet Geithner extracted a small pile of receipts and paper including a New York City MTA farecard, pointing out that there were European Euros tucked amongst the paper.
Notably not seen in the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s wallet? Any U.S. dollars.
Tim, why couldn’t you just say you carry Zimbabwean money around because you care about that country… YOU LOVED THERE! I am saddened by the politicians inability to say anything that would associate him/her to failing or rogue states. You were a kid! Just own your history!
McCain moment
The third and final debate between the 2008 U.S. presidential nominees had just ended. Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama and Republican nominee Senator John McCain had just shaken hands moments before and turned away from each other, when Senator McCain suddenly lunged forward with his hands out in front of him and stuck out his tongue.
It appeared to me that McCain was reacting to moderator Bob Schieffer informing him that he was headed the wrong way off the stage, that he was not supposed to be following Senator Obama, but was supposed to be heading towards his own wife and family around the other side of the table.
In any case, when I saw McCain lunge and his hands start to come up I hit the shutter and made two frames before it was over. Some other photographers who were there expressed surprise when they saw my picture and said they had never seen it happen at all and asked when it had occurred. When I saw the television tape of it later on the news I too was surprised at how momentary and fast the move by Senator McCain was. Strangely enough Senator McCain again stuck his tongue out in a similar way 3-4 minutes later while standing between his wife Cindy and Senator Obama at the front of the stage, a moment captured by my colleague Shannon Stapleton and other wire service photographers in attendance and once again shown on national and international television.
The picture, as with all my pictures that night, was remotely edited by an editor off site, viewing my pictures as I shot them over the internet and working with other editors who processed and captioned the pictures along with photos from the other three Reuters photographers shooting the debate. This photo was just one of 40 of my pictures that were transmitted on the Reuters wire from this debate and one of more than 100 from our crew of photographers, which included Gary Hershorn, Shannon Stapleton, Jim Young and Carlos Barria.
By the time I got back to my hotel room that night people were already discussing the photo on the internet and by the next morning my email inbox was filling with messages about the picture. Some people complimented me on the photo while others strongly criticized both myself and Reuters for shooting and transmitting a news photo of a very public moment that had taken place in front of more than 60 million television viewers at the culmination of a major and historic public event.
Everybody has unguarded moments and this was one of John McCain’s. Any normal person knows that McCain isn’t like this 24×7. Howard Smith’s comments exemplify the dangerous change that has overcome journalism where it is treated as “defamatory” to present something that actually happened or was said, or to present politicians as if they are human. This attitude leads to excessive deference: these people are supposed to be our servants, not we theirs. It then creeps into reporting on their policies, as if they, too, are flawless; that to e.g. question the ‘evidence’ of Iraqi WMDs is also “defamatory”. Smith should disclose who employs him, so we know what organizations distort the news, so that we can discount them.
-
Resident Photographers Blog Expert
-
The Wall
sad…heart goes out to them…